Wegman v. Mashey

The action was originally filed in Virginia state court but was removed to the federal district court for the Eastern District of Virginia. On April 30, 2015, Wegman filed a notice of voluntary dismissal. A parallel action asserting the same claims was filed by another author of the 2006 report, Yasmin Said, and was also withdrawn.

In March 2014, Edward Wegman, the lead author of a 2006 report to Congress that purported to undermine the scientific basis for climate change, filed a lawsuit against John Mashey, a computer scientist who studied “climate science & anti-science and energy issues” and who had written about these issues in various venues, including DeSmogBlog, Skeptical Inquirer, and Deep Climate. Wegman alleged that Mashey’s writings about the 2006 report—in which Mashey asserted numerous problems with the report, including a significant amount of plagiarized text—caused Wegman to be investigated by his university and to lose his position as an editor of a journal. Wegman asserted claims of tortious interference with contract, common law conspiracy, and statutory conspiracy.