So this good news flew under the radar a few weeks back:
In the age of Trump, a climate change libel suit heads to trial
A defamation lawsuit filed by a high-profile climate scientist will be allowed to proceed, an appeals court ruled on Thursday.
The case is being brought by Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, who is perhaps best known for helping develop the famous “hockey stick” graph used to illustrate global warming. Mann is suing two bloggers who accused him of scientific and academic misconduct in 2012. On Thursday, the D.C. Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Mann has the right to proceed with the lawsuit.
I attended oral arguments for this case in November 2014. The three-judge panel took over two years to arrive at their unanimous decision. That’s not surprising — the appellants in the case included the Competitive Enterprise Institute and National Review. One of their lawyers was Michael Carvin, one of the go-to conservative heavyweights tapped to argue against Obamacare before the Supreme Court. And somewhat incredibly to me, they were armed with amicus briefs from the ACLU, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, among many others.
Notwithstanding the formidable reputations of the appellant’s allies, I think they were wrong to argue, as they did, that simply because an issue of political importance is up for debate, that text-book defamation of a scientist is not text-book defamation. The defendants in the case accused Mann of scientific misconduct, tampering with data, and lying about the results of his research. For a professional scientist, it would be difficult to construct a more damaging libel.
Oh… wait...
That July, CEI scholar Rand Simberg wrote a post for the organization's blog likening the situation to "another cover up," the "Michael Mann affair." Simberg also called Mann "the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data."
So… let’s just leave that there and without getting into all the details of defamation law, and SLAPP lawsuits and the procedural posture of the case, let’s skip forward to the hilarity.
Mann gave the defendants in his case a chance to avoid litigation. He didn’t have to, but he’s a mensch like that.
You know who’s not a mensch? Nick Lowry, editor of the National Review.
In 2012, when Mr. Lowry received Dr. Mann’s letter requesting retraction and take down request, he responded publicly on the National Review website:
Get Lost
Usually, you don’t welcome a nuisance lawsuit, because it’s a nuisance. It consumes time. It costs money. But this is a different matter in light of one word: discovery.
If Mann sues us, the materials we will need to mount a full defense will be extremely wide-ranging. So if he files a complaint, we will be doing more than fighting a nuisance lawsuit; we will be embarking on a journalistic project of great interest to us and our readers.
And this is where you come in. If Mann goes through with it, we’re probably going to call on you to help fund our legal fight and our investigation of Mann through discovery. If it gets that far, we may eventually even want to hire a dedicated reporter to comb through the materials and regularly post stories on Mann.
My advice to poor Michael is to go away and bother someone else. If he doesn’t have the good sense to do that, we look forward to teaching him a thing or two about the law and about how free debate works in a free country.
My bet is the Lowry and his attorneys thought that Mann would “go away”. But I’ve told you once, and I’ll tell you again: Dr. Michael Mann is a mensch. It’s impossible to count the number of arrows he’s taken to help save a habitable climate for our children, but this time he decided to fire one of his own, and he followed through with the lawsuit.
And we all know what happens when you punch a bully in the nose. This is the National Review after this most recent decision was issued:
Where does this leave NR, and what’s next? The court’s decision comes at a very early stage, addressing only the initial question of whether the case should be dismissed because the speech in question is categorically protected by the First Amendment as a matter of law. By itself, that threshold issue is crucially important for the vibrancy of free expression in our nation’s capital, because the litigation process itself is often the punishment, and nobody should be subjected to the expense and hassle of legal proceedings for exercising his right to speak freely on matters such as this. For that reason, we intend to seek a prompt rehearing from the full D.C. Court of Appeals, followed if necessary by a petition for review in the United States Supreme Court. Given the Supreme Court’s broad protection of First Amendment rights in recent years, we like our chances on that front. But even after that, several rounds of litigation would still remain standing between Dr. Mann and any recovery against NR. We will aggressively assert the full panoply of legal and factual defenses available to us.
Without going into all the details, suffice it to say that the legal terrain is favorable, and we will fight for every inch.
So much for discovery, eh? Truth is… National Review would gain no advantage from discovery and they know it…
And on the other hand… Mann would be allowed to probe National Review’s motivations for lying about him. It can be assumed that an awful lot of dark money, much of it reflecting corrupt journalistic practices, would be brought to light.
And hey, you know what? The thought occurs to me that what I just said about National Review’s corrupt journalistic practices could be found defamatory.
Except… The truth of the statement is an absolute defense.
I blogged this under my own name. I’m not hiding. I don’t think I’ll be sued. Why? One word: discovery.