UPDATES have been added below.
I spent yesterday conferring with lawyers about the smear that Greg Laden made against me (see here) that was compounded by it being reprinted and Tweeted at Climate progress by Joe Romm. I think Romm now realizes that he made a mistake by not checking out Laden’s claims before he printed it. He’s now added an update walking back from his position a bit, adding a link to WUWT and a note for his readers to see how Laden purposely twisted the story. He also needs to make a note about this walkback on Twitter, since his story went out to thousands that way. CP is equally culpable in this by not checking Laden’s claims before publishing.
After review yesterday, it seems that Laden’s actions in his original and follow up story meet the legal tests for “False Light“.
Generally speaking, a false light claim requires the following:
- The defendant published the information widely (i.e., not to just a single person, as in defamation);
- the publication identifies the plaintiff;
- it places the plaintiff in a “false light” that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person; and
- the defendant was at fault in publishing the information.
While False Light is not recognized in Minnesota (where Laden resides) it IS recognized in Washington DC, where National Geographic is headquartered, and according to our research, Nat Geo has assumed editorial control of ScienceBlogs.com where Mr. Laden placed his essay.
The District of Columbia recognizes the tort of “false light.” Plaintiffs can sue for false light when a false and offensive statement is made about them to the public and causes them distress. The specific things a plaintiff must prove are listed below under “Elements of a False Light Claim.”
Note how NatGeo’s yellow box logo is placed prominently in two places on the SB header:
So, with all of Laden’s written false claims saved, with clear and indisputable examples of Laden’s purposeful malice, plus other examples of malice in context, and an establishment of the location editorial control of the blog he published the false claims on, it seems there is enough to move forward.
The question is, should I make an example of him for all us who have suffered non factual smears such as he practices? Just like I did with the original story that Mr. Laden smeared me about, I’m going to put the question up for discussion by the readers.
UPDATE: I’ve been asked privately why I have chosen to elevate this case, where I did not in a far worse case of smear by Climate Progress regular, Mike Roddy, who along with his co-author, when I requested a factual correction to a smear piece, he put in not one, but two suggestions (plus a comment at CP) that I have sex with farm animals.
It stems from this piece Roddy wrote about me, see the “corrections” at the end, which he apparently agrees with:
http://www.webcitation.org/5x0pgZdgl
Scroll all the way to the bottom to see the update.
I discussed this case with counsel yesterday, and we came to the conclusion that while most ‘reasonable people’ would likely not conclude that I’m a practitioner of bestiality due to the context of the story, in the case of Laden’s story, most reasonable people would conclude that Laden’s story as written was accurate, since he went to great lengths to conceal anything in his story that showed the caveats I placed. That’s the actionable distinction with a difference. – Anthony
UPDATE1: Wow, just wow.
http://storify.com/Kieran_Madden/conversation-with-idebunkforme-gregladen-and-kiera
UPDATE2: Hilarious logic fail, from a comment at Laden’s blog:
‘Kudos to Greg for demonstrating the openness of this blog by allowing the WUWT attack dogs to post their vitriolic bilge. No censorship here, wish the same could be said of Mr Watts and his cronies.
The denialists are committing crimes against humanity, surely it’s time for legislation to close these sites down’.
UPDATE 3: 8AM PST 1/21/13 – Thanks to everyone for all of the helpful input, and for responding to the poll. Using these, I’ve made my decision. Comments are now closed as well as the poll. – Anthony
NatGeo deserves to be sued – for being a boneheaded alarmist mess.
Don’t even think that you can force them to apologize without suing them.
Go through at least the first stage of making a demand letter on both Ladin and Nat Geo. Hopefully Nat Geo will recognize their liability and exert at least minimal editorial control over the blog.
Don’t waste your time and effort in a full blown lawsuit.
No. The focus of reality-based, science-based efforts to expose the manmade global warming scam need to be advanced by the science. Niki Minaj versus Maria Carey is petty.
If you win the lawsuit, what do you win? A ‘false light’ lawsuit. You win a decreased likelihood that other warming-cultists will falsely represent info.
Give them enough rope. They are exposing themselves as anti-science cultists as time goes by. The best is – if any lawsuits are going to be thrown – to let them threaten, and throw, the lawsuit. Having the truth on your side is not always a guaranteed win, but is the most comfortable place to be in a lawsuit.
You could win money. To what end? If you have a great idea concerning the global warming scam that would require $100,000, go figure how to raise 100K / don’t use a possible lawsuit win to finance some project. If the project is worthy, do it.
This blog is widely read. Simply exposing this stuff is good enough.
Even demanding an apology can (and will) be spun by odioous little creeps like Laden. If you use outright threats of legal action to force that apology, the game becomes “how far can I push before he has to follow through?” At that point you’re effectively committed to taking action on his terms.
By all means contact Nat Geo politely to advise them of the issue, and that you reserve the right to include this slur in any future action that might become necessary if his behaviour continues. But leave it to them to decide how to deal with it – they (should) be well aware that if they fail to do anything substansive they’re liable to be more culpable in any future action.
Buddy, some of us are paying taxes because of the AGW scam. While not happy at it, can we really do anything?
If you can get a bit back for all of us, PLEASE do so!!
I hope we get to the point that the government will reimburse us on these hoax taxes…. yeah, right!
I did vote to sue but i’d add some caveats.
Firstly this will bring a whole heap of unwanted attention from the usual suspects, but then I think you are broad shouldered enough to deal with that.
Also it will take up a considerable part of your time, these things are never quick, although i believe you have some sort of formal get together first to see if parties can be convinced to settle. that would be the best outcome.
It would likely be expensive should you lose and I’m sure the WUWT faithful will help out considerably you have to ask yourself if you are prepared for such a loss.
It will likely be stressful. Do you need it?
if your lawyer feels strongly in favour of a suit then go ahead otherwise I’d advise ignoring Laden and having your lawyers draft a demand for clear and unequivocal apology in various mediums to be sent to whoever has editorial control of science blogs and also to as high up a person you can contact in Nat Geo. Now i know Nat Geo are full of the green tinted glasses, carrying a story just today saying that America is having earlier spring blooms as a direct result of global warming ( their words ) and probably consider you in the same light that many others do from their position.
I don’t doubt that Nat Geo, if pushed would fight a suit but then I also know executives and they hate to be dragged into anything like this. Contact a higher up, have the lawyer make the demands ( with the obligatory threat to file if the demands are not met ) and see what occurs.
I went for the option to sue simply because it’s always a shame to miss an opportunity like this, especially when Mann feels free to file suit at the drop of a hat and over things quite frivolous at times. Also there is the matter of Laden himself. He just does this far too often and I think sooner or later somebody has to bite the bullet and take him to task or hell just embolden himself.
Whatever you decide I wish you well. make sure you have copies of all tweets and pages. Put the site on http://www.changedetection.com/ so you can keep track of the slightest change in wording of his posts or comments as that’s a clear sign he understands he’s done wrong.
But the fact that he’s chosen not to post 5 of my comments which were not directed at him, contained no ad hom but merely referenced the facts behind the 16 years thing has my dander up so from a purely personal viewpoint, take his shirt.
Laden is a badly behaved imbecile. Better to ignore than give him free publicity – this is what he wants. He will claim martyrdom if he can. Also remember how he went in to meltdown over Tallbloke ranting about kicking limey butt – enough said – the man is a big mouthed, bigoted, attention seeking idiot.
addendum:
i just noticed he has already posted about this and is mocking you, daring you in fact. As I said, cut him out and go above his head, have the lawyers do the work.
He’s not worth your time, Anthony, and would probably be glad of the publicity right now. Just give him a bit more rope.
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Tricky.
The last time I sued a corporation, they did not go for the ball, they went for the man. Their defence was nothing about the case: instead it was about the mistakes I had made when I has started my company; a mistake in a tax return three years previously; a mistake in my headed paper (it had to show the company number); a question over whether my residence was registered to run a company. etc: etc:
In short, they dredged for dirt, and found a few spots. They then racked up a huge bill of some £350,000 in a couple of months and threatened that that was what I would have to pay them if I lost the case. And I could either settle now, or the bill was rising by £70,000 a week. It was calculated pressure, to end the case.
I was only saved by my solicitor discovering that in certain cases, this might be a civil case, and I could therefore involve the police. Finally, they backed off and settled out of court.
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Sue and I will contribute to you legal fund to do it.
In the field of science, TRUTH is TRUTH, and eventually wins out. In our present court system, a verdict is often decided by many other things than TRUTH.
I liked the comment:
Scott Basinger says:
January 18, 2013 at 7:20 am
No. Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty but the pig likes it.
In the movie “Primal Fear” the character Martin Vail says: “If you want justice, go to a whorehouse. If you wanna get fucked, go to court.”
The smear campaign has been getting more and more serious, culminating with Lewandowsky publishing a peer-reviewed paper Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, C. E. (in press). NASA faked the moon landing – therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science. and another University professor, Parncutt’s calls for death penalty for “deniers”
So when do we say enough is enough and get serious about stopping the smears and false statements? Do we wait until they get bold enough to make the Crime Against Humanity charge stick?
Heck they are ALREADY trying our mock trials!
I’ve got 200 bucks to contribute to your legal fund should you choose to move forward. I’m voting to demand an apology though. There’s always a danger in looking Michael Mannish by taking legal action, and I don’t think you’re really suffering all that much due to the false charge. It’s making him look like the idiot, not you. I would vote for suing him if there were some sort of discovery process that might shed light on the alarmists in a damaging way. But I don’t see that here.
Just realise that it will be a long drawn out process.
That said the support you will get from 98.3% of the people here should make you realise that you will have the full support whatever your decision.
Just to add re the update, Roddy is despicable. it would be wonderful to bring that guy to his knees legally speaking, though I understand the problem
I’d like to point out that I’d never heard of Greg Laden until youmentioned him.
I am a patent attorney and I live in Minnesota.
If I were you, I would not sue.
Yes you have a claim, and you could certainly sue.
I have no idea if you would win or not, but your claim sounds plausible (not my kind of law).
However, litigation is a huge pain in the ass, it is expensive and it will probably not give you the satisfaction you hope to receive.
Unless you have a lot of experience with litigation (and maybe you do), you cannot imagine how onerous the discovery process would be for you, your blog, all the documents (electronic or paper) you would have to gather, what a pain it is to be deposed, and how complicated and expensive litigation really is.
It is not as if the Court will find that Laden is a liar (which is what most people want – a judicial statement justifying their outrage).
The court/jury may find that he was expressing an opinion, or that he was mistaken or that you haven’t proven by a preponderence of evidence that you have proven “false light”.
This is not about money.
So take the high road and just use your free speech rights to defend your name and reputation (which you have already successfully done imo).
Ok so while i know your probably trying to keep this simple as a sue/not sue poll… I do think attacking this on muti-fronts is best option.
First ignore laden directly.
Second keep talking to lawyers and as suggested above try to find someone pro-bono. Maybe talk to Dr Ball about if his pro-bono group knows someone who will take your case pro-bono.
After playing with the lawyers a bit I would suggest going after nat geo. Write them a letter explaining your going to sue the pants off them unless (insert massive list of demands) are completed.
You should list at least the following.
Nat geo must post an apology… which YOU(make sure to clearly state this repeatedly) will write FOR THEM on every single nat geo site.
This apology will be displayed/linked/bannered on the front page for X amount of time(i suggest a month) and be detailed in saying it must be seen when entering the main sites and must be X big not some minor footnote. Be insanely detailed in this as you don’t want to give them some flopping room because they will try every trick in the book to get out of it. Hell have someone make a demo of it for them to post. Add flashing lights… go crazy. Try to have the banner clearly but short and simply say they were wrong/etc so that people will click it to look at the full text of your long(very long) written apology that they will post. Maybe josh or someone from comments/next poll/contest can help with creating an eye catching banner/etc to draw people in.
Next demand that included be space for a complete rebuttal of global warming and that this must be displayed as well. As they say… go big or go home. Include all the fraud and everything over these last few years into this post which they will now be forced to display on their sites.
Just getting those 2 things done could very well put a great many nails in the religion of global warming. You will basically for the course of a month force every pro-doomsday cult nat geo site to become host to the evil denier propaganda… what better way to cause problems for the cultists? hehe
I would include maybe going after some other minor misdeeds, b*tch slapping some of their other retarded eco-terrorist blogs and forcing them to make corrections to past lies posted. I’m sure some other stuff can be included as well as you probably know more about nat geos misdeeds then most and other bloggers being retarded.
Most likely they will probably refuse since they are religion nutbags. However its worth a shot.
As to the lawsuit… If you can find someone pro-bono go wild. If not I would really be careful in the approach. Even the most slam dunk case will get tossed by corrupt judges at the lower levels. So you can expect you will have to fight in appeals at least once. Its a large sum of money to push these things forward since they will do everything possible to run you out of money through delays. Also don’t forget your dealing with eco-terrorists here… they are violent extremists… they also have very good lawyers to protecting them.
Only after playing with nat geo should you deal with laden… let the POS sweat a good bit. If you can break nat geo’s back even with just the apology and such you will “encourage” him to settle quickly.
Just remember the rule of law is the US has recently been heavily compromised… facts, logic, justice, laws are all second to politics.
They say if you’re going for revenge-dig two graves. Pressure on NG may be the most effective
Hi Anthony,
This all seems a bit of a storm in a tea cup and to sue would INHO be silly.
It’s not my impression that you are a silly person.
Great blog 🙂
Anthony,
You have used and continue to use so much of your time and energy providing us with your blog. And we are grateful. You have worked hard to do this even when real life, health and family has needed your attention.
The choice is yours to make but I wonder if the added time and stress will be worth it.
I strongly counsel against taking the legal route … Warren Meyer and Bob Tisdale both make salient points
There’s an expression that you often hear in pubs (bars) the length and breadth of Britain around closing time which is relevant here, “Leave it, he’s not worth it!”
As Charles Dickens writes in “Bleak House” …
This is the Court of Chancery, … which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give – who does not often give – the warning, “Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!”