9 ms·

Jury awards climate scientist Michael Mann $1M in defamation lawsuit

100 points by isaacfrond 3y ago

Slava_Propanei 3y ago
[dead]
OrvalWintermute 3y ago
[flagged]
- redserk 3y ago
  I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here. You realize the Competitive Enterprise Institute is based in DC?
  - OrvalWintermute 3y ago
    The case for including a publisher was incredibly weak, hence why CEI already won the Summary Judgment, and so did NR. https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/22/dc-court-grants-summary-judgment-for-cei-in-michael-mann-defamation-suit/ https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/22/dc-court-grants-summary...
    - redserk 3y ago
      Regardless of how the court ruled, it certainly hasn't been an uncommon practice to include publishers for libel lawsuits.
- mikeyouse 3y ago
  The case was in DC because that's where the 'think tank' that defamed Mann was headquartered.. see bullet point 9 on PDF page 14: https://climatecasechart.com/wp-content/uploads/case-documents/2012/20121024_docket-2012-CA-008263-B_complaint.pdf https://climatecasechart.com/wp-content/uploads/case-documen...
  - OrvalWintermute 3y ago
    You mean the publisher?
bdw5204 3y ago
It seems like the main issue in the case was the completely uncalled for comparison of the climate scientist to a convicted child molester not disagreement with the results of his research. You have a 1st Amendment right to say that the earth is flat if you want to but you don't have the right to equate a scientist who says it isn't flat to Jerry Sandusky.
- johndevor 3y ago
  I thought you did have the right to say anything about any public figure?
  - bombcar 3y ago
    The bar for a defamation lawsuit is higher for a public figure, but it still exists. There's some precise way to say the same thing without falling afoul of it, even then.
    - Karellen 3y ago
      There's an interesting bit of complexity here though because a fair amount of Mann's status as a public figure is because of the climate-conspiracy community's singling him and his work out as a target to be attacked. If a group elevates someone to be a public figure, and uses the fact that they're a public figure to defame them in ways that would not be permitted for non-public figures, should the group really be allowed the same protections that random members of the public have talking crap about people who are incidentally famous? (I suppose it gets a bit complicated that Mann didn't retreat from the attacks, and used the notoriety thrust upon him to become a fairly prominent science communicator. Even so, giving his attackers any benefit of the doubt doesn't seem right somehow...)
  - hacknewslogin 3y ago
    You can, and you won't get arrested. But if you are intentionally trying to cause harm by what you say, that's defamation. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment
Digory 3y ago
This almost certainly gets reduced to a tiny amount. The jury awarded $1 in actual damages and $1m in punitive damages. The Supreme Court has said punitive damages must bear a reasonable relationship to actual damages. As a rule of thumb, 10:1 is usually unconstitutional. 1000000:1 is off the charts.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  Yeah it seems extremely weird. $1 in compensatory damages means the jury decided that yes it was technically defamation, but that it was literally the smallest, tiniest, itty-bittiest amount of defamation that is possible. That it did about the same amount of damage to the scientist's career and reputation, as if he'd ordered delivery and discovered a can of soda was missing. The idea that you could do $1 of damage and your punishment is $1,000,000 is just nonsensical. Either it did extensive damage to his career (years' worth of salary lost) and a million dollars is appropriate additional punishment, or it didn't and he wins a dollar because he was defamed but it did virtually no damage and the defendants merely have to pay his court costs or something.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    The legal situation notwithstanding I actually kinda agree with this. You have to pay $1e6 in punitive damages because you were actively trying to defame him and we want you to be sufficiently disincentivized from trying it again. But since you failed so spectacularly and didn't do any actual harm to him personally or his career here's $1 actual of damages. Can you imagine if firing a gun into a crowd was only illegal if you actually hit someone? I think you have to take intent into account and here it's so blatantly purposeful.
    - adolph 3y ago
      > Can you imagine if firing a gun into a crowd was only illegal if you actually hit someone? Yes, there is typically differences in law between reckless endangerment, manslaughter, premeditated murder, hate crime additions, etc. If one were to balance benefit/harm, if the jury found that the would-be defamers benefited Mann personally and professionally in the manner of the "Streisand Effect," would Mann need to pay them?
consumer451 3y ago
Link to Michael Mann's team's statement: https://bsky.app/profile/michaelemann.bsky.social/post/3kkwsgdro6h2o https://bsky.app/profile/michaelemann.bsky.social/post/3kkws...
epistasis 3y ago
This is a classic case of just how factually, scientifically, and morally bankrupt the money-backed climate denialism movement is. Here was a huge dustup, lots of sizzle, tons and tons of examination, and the end result: it all held up! There's a looooot of stuff in all of science that could be proven to be wrong, so going after something so vigorously, and not having anything to show for it at the end is absolutely sad. Really, you couldn't find any bad analysis to go after instead? It's quite likely that all of climate science is of much much higher quality than the typical science that makes it into the newspapers. What other body of science has something like the IPCC which works so hard to review and summarize the latest knowledge? Reminds me of that physicist who started the BEST effort around temperature readings. He thought "I'm a physicist, and there's so much noise about sloppy climate science, I'll go clean it up and show these people how real analysis is done," and then just came up with exactly the same results that the climate scientists had done. But now, since it was from a physicist at a tier 1 institution, it was finally good work...
- lolinder 3y ago
  It's actually a very weird verdict that makes me (far from a climate skeptic) feel very icky. Whether or not you like Steyn, he makes a valid point here: > “We always said that Mann never suffered any actual injury from the statement at issue,” Steyn said on Thursday through his manager. “And today, after twelve years, the jury awarded him one dollar in compensatory damages.” The jury essentially acknowledged that there was no actual damage, but then proceeded to levy an enormous punitive fine for... reasons. That feels less like the jury was persuaded by hard evidence that Mann was in the right and more that the jury was persuaded that Steyn was subjectively a bad person who needed punishing, which is a weird outcome.
  - epistasis 3y ago
    Edit: not stated at all in this, but which my main point, is that the mistake was that the jury messed up on the compensatory damages, not that the punitive damages are wrong. Coffee is still kicking in... Ok, so active harassment of a person, by a think tank, perpetuating lies and making comparisons to pedophilia is "no damages"? This spurred on harassment including hacking of email contents. What is possibly "icky" about a defamation result, other than the jury didn't find higher compensatory damages? If it's OK in our society for individuals to be attacked with lies like this, with money undirected through think tanks, are you OK with your professional life and personal life being intruded in this way with lies? Really?
timmg 3y ago
Interesting take by a scientist who was a witness in this trial: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/false-equivalence https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/false-equivalence
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  Thank you for sharing this. It's interesting to see this perspective.
- mikeyouse 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - graphe 3y ago
    What makes someone a scientist? Who else did he witness?
    - mikeyouse 3y ago
      > What makes someone a scientist? When discussing climate change? A degree in climatology or meteorology or anything relevant. Pielke's father for instance is a PhD meteorologist (and prominent climate denier) so if he had weighed in, saying "this other scientist has an opinion" would be entirely fair. I generally like Pielke Jr's pushback - it is important to consider the ramifications of what's being proposed and to have accurate info, but describing him as a "scientist that testified" really downplays his role. > Who else did he witness? Not sure what this question means..
      - graphe 3y ago
        I asked what is a scientist, not what is a climate scientist. You said he frequently witnesses other irredeemable characters, such as whom?
  - thinkingtoilet 3y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. I'm sure the OP conveniently forgot to mention that which is typical and not surprising.
goodSteveramos 3y ago
EDIT: I want to add that man made climate change needs to be addressed and the defendant is objectively opposing this. That said, the great HL Menchin once said “The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels.” Concluding that scientific research is fraudulent because you have you own reasons to believe its conclusions are false can’t be defamation without compromising free scientific inquiry. Even if your reason for concluding its fraudulent is because you believe in a flat Earth, courts are not the venue to resolve questions of scientific debate. That is a can of worms that should never be opened lest we find ourselves in a new Lysenkoism.
- dysfunction 3y ago
  There's a difference between concluding that scientific research is wrong and concluding that it is fraudulent. The latter is a claim about the character of the scientist involved, alleging them to have taken unethical if not illegal action. If that is provably false then it can certainly rise to the level of defamation.
  - graphe 3y ago
    What's illegal about torturing data?
    - mjhay 3y ago
      It may or may not be illegal (it probably would be in the case of fraudulently obtained grant funding), but academic fraud is career-ending. It is a very serious accusation. Besides, you are completely misunderstanding how defamation works. Defamation does not require that an allegation of a crime. Heck, there's even a term for this kind of thing: defamation of character. https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/civil-litigation/defamation-character.html https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/civil-litigation/defama... Another term you might want to look up is "Dunning-Kruger."
      - graphe 3y ago

100 points by isaacfrond 3y ago

Slava_Propanei 3y ago

[dead]

OrvalWintermute 3y ago

[flagged]

redserk 3y ago
I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here. You realize the Competitive Enterprise Institute is based in DC?
- OrvalWintermute 3y ago
  The case for including a publisher was incredibly weak, hence why CEI already won the Summary Judgment, and so did NR. https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/22/dc-court-grants-summary-judgment-for-cei-in-michael-mann-defamation-suit/ https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/22/dc-court-grants-summary...
  - redserk 3y ago
    Regardless of how the court ruled, it certainly hasn't been an uncommon practice to include publishers for libel lawsuits.
mikeyouse 3y ago
The case was in DC because that's where the 'think tank' that defamed Mann was headquartered.. see bullet point 9 on PDF page 14: https://climatecasechart.com/wp-content/uploads/case-documents/2012/20121024_docket-2012-CA-008263-B_complaint.pdf https://climatecasechart.com/wp-content/uploads/case-documen...
- OrvalWintermute 3y ago
  You mean the publisher?

bdw5204 3y ago

It seems like the main issue in the case was the completely uncalled for comparison of the climate scientist to a convicted child molester not disagreement with the results of his research. You have a 1st Amendment right to say that the earth is flat if you want to but you don't have the right to equate a scientist who says it isn't flat to Jerry Sandusky.

johndevor 3y ago
I thought you did have the right to say anything about any public figure?
- bombcar 3y ago
  The bar for a defamation lawsuit is higher for a public figure, but it still exists. There's some precise way to say the same thing without falling afoul of it, even then.
  - Karellen 3y ago
    There's an interesting bit of complexity here though because a fair amount of Mann's status as a public figure is because of the climate-conspiracy community's singling him and his work out as a target to be attacked. If a group elevates someone to be a public figure, and uses the fact that they're a public figure to defame them in ways that would not be permitted for non-public figures, should the group really be allowed the same protections that random members of the public have talking crap about people who are incidentally famous? (I suppose it gets a bit complicated that Mann didn't retreat from the attacks, and used the notoriety thrust upon him to become a fairly prominent science communicator. Even so, giving his attackers any benefit of the doubt doesn't seem right somehow...)
- hacknewslogin 3y ago
  You can, and you won't get arrested. But if you are intentionally trying to cause harm by what you say, that's defamation. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment

Digory 3y ago

This almost certainly gets reduced to a tiny amount. The jury awarded $1 in actual damages and $1m in punitive damages. The Supreme Court has said punitive damages must bear a reasonable relationship to actual damages. As a rule of thumb, 10:1 is usually unconstitutional. 1000000:1 is off the charts.

crazygringo 3y ago
Yeah it seems extremely weird. $1 in compensatory damages means the jury decided that yes it was technically defamation, but that it was literally the smallest, tiniest, itty-bittiest amount of defamation that is possible. That it did about the same amount of damage to the scientist's career and reputation, as if he'd ordered delivery and discovered a can of soda was missing. The idea that you could do $1 of damage and your punishment is $1,000,000 is just nonsensical. Either it did extensive damage to his career (years' worth of salary lost) and a million dollars is appropriate additional punishment, or it didn't and he wins a dollar because he was defamed but it did virtually no damage and the defendants merely have to pay his court costs or something.
- Spivak 3y ago
  The legal situation notwithstanding I actually kinda agree with this. You have to pay $1e6 in punitive damages because you were actively trying to defame him and we want you to be sufficiently disincentivized from trying it again. But since you failed so spectacularly and didn't do any actual harm to him personally or his career here's $1 actual of damages. Can you imagine if firing a gun into a crowd was only illegal if you actually hit someone? I think you have to take intent into account and here it's so blatantly purposeful.
  - adolph 3y ago
    > Can you imagine if firing a gun into a crowd was only illegal if you actually hit someone? Yes, there is typically differences in law between reckless endangerment, manslaughter, premeditated murder, hate crime additions, etc. If one were to balance benefit/harm, if the jury found that the would-be defamers benefited Mann personally and professionally in the manner of the "Streisand Effect," would Mann need to pay them?

consumer451 3y ago

Link to Michael Mann's team's statement: https://bsky.app/profile/michaelemann.bsky.social/post/3kkwsgdro6h2o https://bsky.app/profile/michaelemann.bsky.social/post/3kkws...

epistasis 3y ago

This is a classic case of just how factually, scientifically, and morally bankrupt the money-backed climate denialism movement is. Here was a huge dustup, lots of sizzle, tons and tons of examination, and the end result: it all held up! There's a looooot of stuff in all of science that could be proven to be wrong, so going after something so vigorously, and not having anything to show for it at the end is absolutely sad. Really, you couldn't find any bad analysis to go after instead? It's quite likely that all of climate science is of much much higher quality than the typical science that makes it into the newspapers. What other body of science has something like the IPCC which works so hard to review and summarize the latest knowledge? Reminds me of that physicist who started the BEST effort around temperature readings. He thought "I'm a physicist, and there's so much noise about sloppy climate science, I'll go clean it up and show these people how real analysis is done," and then just came up with exactly the same results that the climate scientists had done. But now, since it was from a physicist at a tier 1 institution, it was finally good work...

lolinder 3y ago
It's actually a very weird verdict that makes me (far from a climate skeptic) feel very icky. Whether or not you like Steyn, he makes a valid point here: > “We always said that Mann never suffered any actual injury from the statement at issue,” Steyn said on Thursday through his manager. “And today, after twelve years, the jury awarded him one dollar in compensatory damages.” The jury essentially acknowledged that there was no actual damage, but then proceeded to levy an enormous punitive fine for... reasons. That feels less like the jury was persuaded by hard evidence that Mann was in the right and more that the jury was persuaded that Steyn was subjectively a bad person who needed punishing, which is a weird outcome.
- epistasis 3y ago
  Edit: not stated at all in this, but which my main point, is that the mistake was that the jury messed up on the compensatory damages, not that the punitive damages are wrong. Coffee is still kicking in... Ok, so active harassment of a person, by a think tank, perpetuating lies and making comparisons to pedophilia is "no damages"? This spurred on harassment including hacking of email contents. What is possibly "icky" about a defamation result, other than the jury didn't find higher compensatory damages? If it's OK in our society for individuals to be attacked with lies like this, with money undirected through think tanks, are you OK with your professional life and personal life being intruded in this way with lies? Really?

timmg 3y ago

Interesting take by a scientist who was a witness in this trial: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/false-equivalence https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/false-equivalence

bluefirebrand 3y ago
Thank you for sharing this. It's interesting to see this perspective.
mikeyouse 3y ago
[flagged]
- graphe 3y ago
  What makes someone a scientist? Who else did he witness?
  - mikeyouse 3y ago
    > What makes someone a scientist? When discussing climate change? A degree in climatology or meteorology or anything relevant. Pielke's father for instance is a PhD meteorologist (and prominent climate denier) so if he had weighed in, saying "this other scientist has an opinion" would be entirely fair. I generally like Pielke Jr's pushback - it is important to consider the ramifications of what's being proposed and to have accurate info, but describing him as a "scientist that testified" really downplays his role. > Who else did he witness? Not sure what this question means..
    - graphe 3y ago
      I asked what is a scientist, not what is a climate scientist. You said he frequently witnesses other irredeemable characters, such as whom?
- thinkingtoilet 3y ago
  Thanks for the clarification. I'm sure the OP conveniently forgot to mention that which is typical and not surprising.

goodSteveramos 3y ago

EDIT: I want to add that man made climate change needs to be addressed and the defendant is objectively opposing this. That said, the great HL Menchin once said “The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels.” Concluding that scientific research is fraudulent because you have you own reasons to believe its conclusions are false can’t be defamation without compromising free scientific inquiry. Even if your reason for concluding its fraudulent is because you believe in a flat Earth, courts are not the venue to resolve questions of scientific debate. That is a can of worms that should never be opened lest we find ourselves in a new Lysenkoism.

dysfunction 3y ago
There's a difference between concluding that scientific research is wrong and concluding that it is fraudulent. The latter is a claim about the character of the scientist involved, alleging them to have taken unethical if not illegal action. If that is provably false then it can certainly rise to the level of defamation.
- graphe 3y ago
  What's illegal about torturing data?
  - mjhay 3y ago
    It may or may not be illegal (it probably would be in the case of fraudulently obtained grant funding), but academic fraud is career-ending. It is a very serious accusation. Besides, you are completely misunderstanding how defamation works. Defamation does not require that an allegation of a crime. Heck, there's even a term for this kind of thing: defamation of character. https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/civil-litigation/defamation-character.html https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/civil-litigation/defama... Another term you might want to look up is "Dunning-Kruger."
    - graphe 3y ago