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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

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?
- listless 3y ago
  I think this verdict is both good and bad. We've been dragging people through the mud over nothing now for a while and celebrating it. Society is sick. It needs to stop. At the same time, I worry about a "chilling" effect on anyone who questions "the science". Whether you like them or not, we need people who question climate science. We need people who question vaccines. Yes, they are annoying and in this case they went way, way too far.
  - wolrah 3y ago
    > At the same time, I worry about a "chilling" effect on anyone who questions "the science". In what way? This has nothing to do with disagreement, it's about defamation. Claiming that a researcher was intentionally and fraudulently manipulating data is an entirely different ballpark from disagreeing with their methods or conclusions. The various groups who have decided as a matter of dogma that their pet theory is correct therefore all of science must be a conspiracy to cover up the truth will of course present things as if this verdict threatens any dissent, but that's simply nonsense. > Whether you like them or not, we need people who question climate science. We need people who question vaccines. Yes, they are annoying and in this case they went way, way too far. We need people who question science *in good faith*. People who disagree because they have an alternative that also fits the known facts, or because they see valid weaknesses in the methods used to come to the conclusion. Scientific progress is built on questioning things. We do not need people like the defendants in this case who have decided that climate change is an evil liberal conspiracy to empower governments. We do not need people like Jenny McCarthy, RFK Jr., etc. who have decided that all the different often entirely unrelated kinds of vaccines in the world are somehow part of the same conspiracy to do...something. These people are not adding to the discussion, they're not contributing to progress, they're at best getting in the way and in a lot of cases trying their hardest to push things back. I could go on and on. Creationists, flat-earthers, moon landing deniers, etc. will all scream about how the scientific establishment is silencing them for questioning things, but the reality is they're just wrong, annoying, and deserve no credit for anything because they're not doing it in good faith. They're not trying to find the truth, they've decided they know the truth and are hostile to anything else.
- lolinder 3y ago
  I didn't say I like what Steyn and co said or that they should be allowed to say it, but the process matters. In the US we're supposed to have a very high threshold for what kinds of speech can be punished. For defamation, it is required that the plaintiff be able to show that there were damages. The jury's awarding of $1 shows that they were not persuaded that there was any financial damage done to Mann by this think tank's actions. Their subsequent award of $1m in punitive damages shows that they were persuaded that Steyn's speech deserved to be punished. That second part is what I'm not comfortable with. If they awarded him $1m in compensatory damages that would be one thing, but choosing the absolute minimum and then levying a huge punitive fine is a scary result for anyone who values the speech protections we have in the US.
  - saveferris 3y ago
    You can look at it like this... They jury was concerned about the speech by the think tank. They don't want anyone else to have to suffer through it. The plaintiff though didn't have actual monetary damages from it, but you and me might have. The jury is signaling, stronly, that this type of speech isn't allowed and should be punished. The fact that it happened to someone who wasn't monetarily harmed much by it isn't relevant but let's put a high bar out there to deter anyone else from this type of speech towards people who could be damaged. The way the laws work it is really the only thing they could do if they believed the defendant's speech is harmful. That's how I read into the monetary awards...
    - lolinder 3y ago
      I know that's what the jury thought they were doing, but that isn't actually constitutional in the US. Juries are not empowered to decide whether speech isn't allowed and should be punished, they're empowered to decide whether speech is defamation and how much harm was done by said defamation. Here, they found there was ~no harm done. That means that, constitutionally, they are unable to levy a substantial fine.
- torstenvl 3y ago
  Harassment was not at issue. The jury found malice because they had to if they wanted to impose any damages at all. For a public figure—such as a public employee in the news—the "actual malice" standard applies in defamation cases in the U.S. I'm glossing over a bit of nuance regarding limited public figures, without which I'm not sure this would apply to Mann (I'm not a 1A practitioner), but Wikipedia does a pretty good job of discussing the cornerstone case and further developments, for those interested. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sulliv...
- mcmcmc 3y ago
  The issue is probably more to do with how injury is defined in the context of defamation law. Actual damages require that they prove the victim lost something tangible as a direct result of the defamation. It's not hard to argue that he lost out on the grant funding due to the previous leak or some other outside factor. The decision is more like saying the original article was a marginal factor in the specific claim they made in the lawsuit but the egregiousness of the defamation was severe enough to warrant further damages.
- IncreasePosts 3y ago
  Yes, they made a super edgy comparison to pedophilia, but it is pretty clear they aren't saying Mann is a pedophile. In fact, they even say he doesn't molest children: > Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except for instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data
  - enterprise_cog 3y ago
    The comparison is them saying it. You don’t evoke a thought like that without wanting to imply something.
    - kyleee 3y ago
      Talk about tortured logic…
croes 3y ago
The reasons are clearly stated in the article >It awarded punitive damages of $1,000 from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn, after finding that the pair made their statements with “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm.
- lolinder 3y ago
  I didn't say they didn't provide reasoning, I said that their reasoning feels icky to me. Essentially, the jury's decision says that no harm was done but that Steyn's motives for speech were reason enough for him to be punished regardless of the actual outcome of that speech. To me that's a very scary result.
  - croes 3y ago
    If I try to run you over with my car but I miss, then all is ok? Just because they failed in harming him doesn't make it harmless.
    - lolinder 3y ago
      In the US, speech has higher protections than other malfeasance. You cannot legally be punished for defamation if your words caused no harm, regardless of your intent.
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        But that doesn't mean you can't be held responsible and civilly liable, which is what punitive damages are. Civil court has a "lower" standard of evidence because it can't take your rights away, not because it can't find you at fault for something and levy a "don't freaking do that" fine against you.
        lolinder 3y ago
        As I've replied elsewhere, it's not a question of the existence of the punitive damages, it's a question of ratio. 4:1 is a typical ratio, 1m:1 is completely unheard of. You have to actually have damaged someone to have punitive damages levied for what you did, and by setting $1 as the actual damages the jury acknowledges no harm was done and therefore cannot levy substantial punitive damages.
saveferris 3y ago
So, I think you are correct. The jury messed up, wasn't explained to properly, etc. There are thresholds on how much punitive damages can be awarded and they are some multiple of the other damages...this one is more than that. The reasons were...."....after finding that the pair made their statements with “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm.” So, the jury found that they made statements that were willfully intended to harm someone - they were deliberate to inflict harm. They found that the actual harm wasn't much in monetary terms but decided to levy a large punitive award to signal to others not to do this and punish the two that did. That makes sense. You have to prove actual damages, either the plaintff didn't try to or were unsuccessful...so $1 and then a larger amount to punish the behavior and deter others from doing it.
astura 3y ago
>levy an enormous punitive fine for... reasons. Do you not know what the word punitive means? Punitive damages are meant to be a punishment as well as to deter others from similar behavior. They are totally normal and not meant to make the plaintiff whole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punitive_damages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punitive_damages > Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit.[1] Although the purpose of punitive damages is not to compensate the plaintiff, the plaintiff will receive all or some of the punitive damages in award
- lolinder 3y ago
  My concern isn't punitive damages in the abstract, its the 1m:1 ratio of punitive damages to actual damages. From that same Wikipedia article: > In response to judges and juries which award high punitive damages verdicts, the Supreme Court of the United States has made several decisions which limit awards of punitive damages through the due process of law clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. In a number of cases, the Court has indicated that a 4:1 ratio between punitive and compensatory damages is high enough to lead to a finding of constitutional impropriety and that any ratio of 10:1 or higher is almost certainly unconstitutional. There was an exception made for a 526:1 ratio because the case was especially egregious, but this ratio is 1901 times larger than the one in that Supreme Court case.
  - mcmcmc 3y ago
    Oh wow. That's very important context. The current SCOTUS would love to get their hands on a case that lets them give their friends more protection.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
I agree with your general argument that the ruling is somewhat self-contradictory. At the same time, I don't fault them for that verdict. Nobody deserves to be compared to child molesters like that. That's extreme bad faith at best and deliberate character assassination at worst. He clearly suffered a moral injury.
pyuser583 3y ago
I read somewhere that it’s unconstitutional for overly high punitive damages in libel/slander cases. Anything above single digit ratio is ($10 punitive for $1 damages) questionable. Not sure if that applies here.
njarboe 3y ago
There is a split in how people view the justice system should work. One thinks the laws should apply to everyone equally and the justice system is there to enforce the law. The other is that life is unfair and the justice system can be used to help fix that imbalance. We get a mix of the two in reality with the same word used to describe both. Things are, of course, more complicated, but here is a short overview of the concept[1]. [1] https://tsowell.com/spquestc.html https://tsowell.com/spquestc.html
cameldrv 3y ago
To me the concept of punitive damages is very suspect. Civil cases are supposed to have a lower burden of proof because they’re just compensation, not punishment, but then they throw in punitive damages. Maybe there should be a separate verdict for punitive damages with a beyond reasonable doubt standard.
commandlinefan 3y ago
> the jury was persuaded that Steyn was subjectively a bad person This seems to be par for the course for the jury system, which is why we have an appeals process run by much, much more objective people, fortunately. At least so far.
- yellow_postit 3y ago
  Which is only accessible for those with sufficient wealth and time

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?

listless 3y ago
I think this verdict is both good and bad. We've been dragging people through the mud over nothing now for a while and celebrating it. Society is sick. It needs to stop. At the same time, I worry about a "chilling" effect on anyone who questions "the science". Whether you like them or not, we need people who question climate science. We need people who question vaccines. Yes, they are annoying and in this case they went way, way too far.
- wolrah 3y ago
  > At the same time, I worry about a "chilling" effect on anyone who questions "the science". In what way? This has nothing to do with disagreement, it's about defamation. Claiming that a researcher was intentionally and fraudulently manipulating data is an entirely different ballpark from disagreeing with their methods or conclusions. The various groups who have decided as a matter of dogma that their pet theory is correct therefore all of science must be a conspiracy to cover up the truth will of course present things as if this verdict threatens any dissent, but that's simply nonsense. > Whether you like them or not, we need people who question climate science. We need people who question vaccines. Yes, they are annoying and in this case they went way, way too far. We need people who question science *in good faith*. People who disagree because they have an alternative that also fits the known facts, or because they see valid weaknesses in the methods used to come to the conclusion. Scientific progress is built on questioning things. We do not need people like the defendants in this case who have decided that climate change is an evil liberal conspiracy to empower governments. We do not need people like Jenny McCarthy, RFK Jr., etc. who have decided that all the different often entirely unrelated kinds of vaccines in the world are somehow part of the same conspiracy to do...something. These people are not adding to the discussion, they're not contributing to progress, they're at best getting in the way and in a lot of cases trying their hardest to push things back. I could go on and on. Creationists, flat-earthers, moon landing deniers, etc. will all scream about how the scientific establishment is silencing them for questioning things, but the reality is they're just wrong, annoying, and deserve no credit for anything because they're not doing it in good faith. They're not trying to find the truth, they've decided they know the truth and are hostile to anything else.
lolinder 3y ago
I didn't say I like what Steyn and co said or that they should be allowed to say it, but the process matters. In the US we're supposed to have a very high threshold for what kinds of speech can be punished. For defamation, it is required that the plaintiff be able to show that there were damages. The jury's awarding of $1 shows that they were not persuaded that there was any financial damage done to Mann by this think tank's actions. Their subsequent award of $1m in punitive damages shows that they were persuaded that Steyn's speech deserved to be punished. That second part is what I'm not comfortable with. If they awarded him $1m in compensatory damages that would be one thing, but choosing the absolute minimum and then levying a huge punitive fine is a scary result for anyone who values the speech protections we have in the US.
- saveferris 3y ago
  You can look at it like this... They jury was concerned about the speech by the think tank. They don't want anyone else to have to suffer through it. The plaintiff though didn't have actual monetary damages from it, but you and me might have. The jury is signaling, stronly, that this type of speech isn't allowed and should be punished. The fact that it happened to someone who wasn't monetarily harmed much by it isn't relevant but let's put a high bar out there to deter anyone else from this type of speech towards people who could be damaged. The way the laws work it is really the only thing they could do if they believed the defendant's speech is harmful. That's how I read into the monetary awards...
  - lolinder 3y ago
    I know that's what the jury thought they were doing, but that isn't actually constitutional in the US. Juries are not empowered to decide whether speech isn't allowed and should be punished, they're empowered to decide whether speech is defamation and how much harm was done by said defamation. Here, they found there was ~no harm done. That means that, constitutionally, they are unable to levy a substantial fine.
torstenvl 3y ago
Harassment was not at issue. The jury found malice because they had to if they wanted to impose any damages at all. For a public figure—such as a public employee in the news—the "actual malice" standard applies in defamation cases in the U.S. I'm glossing over a bit of nuance regarding limited public figures, without which I'm not sure this would apply to Mann (I'm not a 1A practitioner), but Wikipedia does a pretty good job of discussing the cornerstone case and further developments, for those interested. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sulliv...
mcmcmc 3y ago
The issue is probably more to do with how injury is defined in the context of defamation law. Actual damages require that they prove the victim lost something tangible as a direct result of the defamation. It's not hard to argue that he lost out on the grant funding due to the previous leak or some other outside factor. The decision is more like saying the original article was a marginal factor in the specific claim they made in the lawsuit but the egregiousness of the defamation was severe enough to warrant further damages.
IncreasePosts 3y ago
Yes, they made a super edgy comparison to pedophilia, but it is pretty clear they aren't saying Mann is a pedophile. In fact, they even say he doesn't molest children: > Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except for instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data
- enterprise_cog 3y ago
  The comparison is them saying it. You don’t evoke a thought like that without wanting to imply something.
  - kyleee 3y ago
    Talk about tortured logic…

croes 3y ago

The reasons are clearly stated in the article >It awarded punitive damages of $1,000 from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn, after finding that the pair made their statements with “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm.

lolinder 3y ago
I didn't say they didn't provide reasoning, I said that their reasoning feels icky to me. Essentially, the jury's decision says that no harm was done but that Steyn's motives for speech were reason enough for him to be punished regardless of the actual outcome of that speech. To me that's a very scary result.
- croes 3y ago
  If I try to run you over with my car but I miss, then all is ok? Just because they failed in harming him doesn't make it harmless.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    In the US, speech has higher protections than other malfeasance. You cannot legally be punished for defamation if your words caused no harm, regardless of your intent.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      But that doesn't mean you can't be held responsible and civilly liable, which is what punitive damages are. Civil court has a "lower" standard of evidence because it can't take your rights away, not because it can't find you at fault for something and levy a "don't freaking do that" fine against you.
      - lolinder 3y ago
        As I've replied elsewhere, it's not a question of the existence of the punitive damages, it's a question of ratio. 4:1 is a typical ratio, 1m:1 is completely unheard of. You have to actually have damaged someone to have punitive damages levied for what you did, and by setting $1 as the actual damages the jury acknowledges no harm was done and therefore cannot levy substantial punitive damages.

saveferris 3y ago

So, I think you are correct. The jury messed up, wasn't explained to properly, etc. There are thresholds on how much punitive damages can be awarded and they are some multiple of the other damages...this one is more than that. The reasons were...."....after finding that the pair made their statements with “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm.” So, the jury found that they made statements that were willfully intended to harm someone - they were deliberate to inflict harm. They found that the actual harm wasn't much in monetary terms but decided to levy a large punitive award to signal to others not to do this and punish the two that did. That makes sense. You have to prove actual damages, either the plaintff didn't try to or were unsuccessful...so $1 and then a larger amount to punish the behavior and deter others from doing it.

astura 3y ago

>levy an enormous punitive fine for... reasons. Do you not know what the word punitive means? Punitive damages are meant to be a punishment as well as to deter others from similar behavior. They are totally normal and not meant to make the plaintiff whole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punitive_damages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punitive_damages > Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit.[1] Although the purpose of punitive damages is not to compensate the plaintiff, the plaintiff will receive all or some of the punitive damages in award

lolinder 3y ago
My concern isn't punitive damages in the abstract, its the 1m:1 ratio of punitive damages to actual damages. From that same Wikipedia article: > In response to judges and juries which award high punitive damages verdicts, the Supreme Court of the United States has made several decisions which limit awards of punitive damages through the due process of law clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. In a number of cases, the Court has indicated that a 4:1 ratio between punitive and compensatory damages is high enough to lead to a finding of constitutional impropriety and that any ratio of 10:1 or higher is almost certainly unconstitutional. There was an exception made for a 526:1 ratio because the case was especially egregious, but this ratio is 1901 times larger than the one in that Supreme Court case.
- mcmcmc 3y ago
  Oh wow. That's very important context. The current SCOTUS would love to get their hands on a case that lets them give their friends more protection.

matheusmoreira 3y ago

I agree with your general argument that the ruling is somewhat self-contradictory. At the same time, I don't fault them for that verdict. Nobody deserves to be compared to child molesters like that. That's extreme bad faith at best and deliberate character assassination at worst. He clearly suffered a moral injury.

pyuser583 3y ago

I read somewhere that it’s unconstitutional for overly high punitive damages in libel/slander cases. Anything above single digit ratio is ($10 punitive for $1 damages) questionable. Not sure if that applies here.

njarboe 3y ago

There is a split in how people view the justice system should work. One thinks the laws should apply to everyone equally and the justice system is there to enforce the law. The other is that life is unfair and the justice system can be used to help fix that imbalance. We get a mix of the two in reality with the same word used to describe both. Things are, of course, more complicated, but here is a short overview of the concept[1]. [1] https://tsowell.com/spquestc.html https://tsowell.com/spquestc.html

cameldrv 3y ago

To me the concept of punitive damages is very suspect. Civil cases are supposed to have a lower burden of proof because they’re just compensation, not punishment, but then they throw in punitive damages. Maybe there should be a separate verdict for punitive damages with a beyond reasonable doubt standard.

commandlinefan 3y ago

> the jury was persuaded that Steyn was subjectively a bad person This seems to be par for the course for the jury system, which is why we have an appeals process run by much, much more objective people, fortunately. At least so far.

yellow_postit 3y ago
Which is only accessible for those with sufficient wealth and time