Climate scientist loses court case – ordered to "cease and desist" smearing independent journalist who wrote about IPCC errors

PS: And don’t forget it’s not the UVA’s money it’s wasting. Its defense is being funded by some greenie organization.

The newspaper should retract the retraction and demand the dismissal of Rahmstorf. Yeah, like that’s going to happen.

I don’t believe the judgement mentions the actual amount of the court costs, but Rahmstorf has to pay two-thirds of them. I don’t know whether in Germany the phrase “court costs” includes the plaintiff’s attorney fees. If so it could add to a tidy sum.
It may also be possible for Meichsner to recover some additional money in a suit against the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research with the claim Rahmstorf was acting under their institutional aegis and they failed to exercise proper oversight.
And I think the newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau should at a minimum print a retraction of their original retraction, in the same space and prominence as the original, and bill Rahsmtorf for the cost (wholesale).
The goal in a civil lawsuit is not (except in the minds of US trial attorneys) to extort millions and get rich, but to make “whole” the damaged party. This is easy where actual incurred costs can be counted and more difficult where professional reputations have been damaged.

Regarding various comments on “who really won [lost] …”. The financial penalty is indeed quite modest (511 Euros). The additional award of two thirds of the court costs I have not been able to quantify, but the larger they are the more the one third Meichsner must pay will hurt her. As she is the plaintiff (not the paper), I assume this will come our of her pocket. It would be interesting to get her perspective on the decision.
However, one clear positive outcome is we can add to Rahmstorf’s professional resume: “liar”. Remember how much the Team used the Oxburgh report as proof they had been exonerated? Now there is a court judgement on record that one of the Team was reckless and untruthful in a matter directly related to his professional field and it can be mentioned whenever Rahmstorf’s name is brought up.
Now what to call him? This sort of wrong is classified as a “tort”, and he can be fairly described as guilty of a “tortuous injury”, but we need a catchy shorthand for that. In criminal matters, we describe those guilty of serious crimes as “convicted felons”, or more simply “felons”. Lesser criminal acts are classified as “misdemeanors”, but I don’t know a short phrase to describe those convicted thereunder — misdemeanorites? misdemorons? Part of the problem is “misdemeanor” sounds like “Miss Demeanor”, a newspaper advice column on manners and deportment for young ladies. But I digress.
Still less can I think of a phrase for those with civil judgments against them. The legal usage appears to be “tortfeasor”, but hardly anyone will recognize that. Since much of tort law is designed to protect against negligence, perhaps we can lump violators under the rubric “negligencia”. But as this case was willful that won’t do. Miscreant? I think that one has religious/theological implications. Malefactor? That looks too much like “Male factor”, which could mean a whole bunch of unrelated things. Curr? Scoundrel? Those have wide popular usage, but I don’t think they have the accepted precise meaning which fits here.
Perhaps we’ll just have to go with the established usage:
Stefan Rahmstorf
Climate Scientist, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Tortfeasor (2011)
It does have a certain ring, now that I look at it. Maybe there’s a more impressive sounding german word for it? When I enter “tortfeasor” into Google translate it returns “Schädiger”, which just doesn’t do anything for me.
How about this motto:
“Tortfeasor: not good enough for the State Pen, but good enough for Penn State”
or
“IPCC — We’re looking for a few good Tortfeasors”

I made that mistake over on a WordPress-based alarmist blog, Dr. P.H. CRS. Instead of </i> I accidentally typed <i/> Ooooops! Don’t make that mistake!!