https://tnc.news/2024/02/08/mann-defamation-lawsuit-steyn-simberg2/
By Andrew Lawton
A Washington, D.C. jury has found that conservative writers Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg defamed climate scientist Michael Mann.
The jury deliberated for close to a full day before reaching its decision.
At issue were two blog posts, one by Steyn and one by Simberg, comparing the investigation into alleged academic misconduct by Mann, then a Penn State professor, to Penn State’s handling of Jerry Sandusky, the school’s former head of athletics who raped and molested children.
“If an institution is prepared to cover up systemic statutory rape of minors, what won’t it cover up?” Steyn wrote in his post, which quoted Simberg’s.
The jury awarded Mann $1 in compensatory damages from each plaintiff. It also awarded $1,000 in punitive damages from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn.
The jury found that the statements at issue were defamatory and published with reckless disregard for the truth. They also found that Mann suffered actual injury from the statements’ publication.
Mann sued Steyn and Simberg, along with their respective publishers National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Group in 2012, claiming the posts damaged his reputation as a climate scientist.
In a trial that stretched on for three-and-a-half weeks, Mann claimed he felt like a pariah in his community, noting he once received a dirty look from someone in a grocery store. He said he lost significant grant funding after the blog posts were published, but was not able to produce any evidence linking this to the posts.
Steyn and Simberg argued that Mann’s stature, earnings and reputation have only improved since 2012, meaning that even if he had been defamed, he had suffered no damages, which the plaintiff in a defamation suit must prove.
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I spent a week on a civil jury hearing a case about a land owner that hired a contractor to develop infrastructure on the land owner’s subdivided lots so the land owner could sell the lots to a home builder. The contractor went under but he was bonded and the bonding insurer had to finish the infrastructure. The contractor’s engineer had made a serious error in the sewage design and the bonder had to completely tear out the sewage and start over with a different engineer. This caused a delay and the original contract had a penalty clause for each day the project went past its project completion date.
We were a 12-person jury and, for only a week’s testimony, it took us an entire day just to decide how we were going to sort, consider and weigh a large amount of evidence.
There is no way the jury in the Mann case even remotely considered the details in the amount of evidence presented in this case.
Yes but we got invested in climate change true or false when it looks like it simply boiled down to peddo slur and how much. The difference in awards tells the story when they could have been blue sky with a DC jury and Steyn saved on lawyers.
I had this vision of a milk carton with this written on one side:
MISSING – Input data and source code for Michael Mann’s hockey stick
Dial 1-800-BAD-DATA
Well that is disappointing. Judith Curry has put up an article showing how Mann ruined her academic career with no consequences for him.
What’s the possibility of a class action against Mann by all the people Mann has publicly denigrated like Judith ???
Mark needs to reverse-Tim-Ball it out of there. Across the Canadian border nobody can touch his $1,000,000.
There’s no way Judge Irving allows the punitives to stand as they are, by the way.
What Steyn wrote about Mann was objectively even LESS defamatory than Simberg’s article. Only six cretins could have decided it was worth 1,000 times as much deterrence.
But John B Williams (previous client: Joe Camel) knew what he was doing. He made sure the jury never forgot or forgave Steyn’s days as co-host for Rush Limbaugh.
Yup, it was all about the jury and whom they liked and whom they did not like.
My understanding is that Mann at least partly demonstrated about $100k worth of grant loss. So perhaps the punitive damages were based on 10x of that.
Tim, that’s an interesting hypothesis but it’s slain by the fact that they awarded one dollar, not $100,000, in compensatory damages, which means they were sufficiently sentient not to be convinced Steyn had anything to do with the grants he lost.
Agreed. Its almost as if the award was set up for an easier higher court overruling.
How much were the jury paid to deliver this verdict?
30 pieces of silver each, perhaps?
Steyn’s remark should at best be considered a rant against Penn State as an institution that whitewashes it’s employees, and certainly not as a personal attack against Mann or a comparison of him with sexual offenders. This jury decision is really a bad hoax … but that was to be expected in D.C. Unfortunately, the appeal will also happen in D.C. and it’s not sure if SCOTUS will accept such a case.
Probably stating the obvious again but
“If an institution is prepared to cover up systemic statutory rape of minors, what won’t it cover up?
isn’t it Penn State that was defamed?
I think Remy sang it best.
Dammit, wrong link.
https://youtu.be/fBs1ayrGRz4
Today is a very bad day for the Western World.
Our society is predicated on the right to express a view. Sometimes the view being expressed is wrong or simply a repeat of someone’s view that was wrong. No matter. Society has always accepted discourse will consist of facts, part facts and possible untruths, sometimes even known lies. That is the way society rubs along. Under this process fools and charlatans are normally revealed, to the benefit of society as it rolls along.
Today a court in the Capital of the USA Washington has decided Mark Steyn is guilty of deformation for writing a well found, well supported statement he believes to be true. A statement supported by scientific peer reviewed study. The defamatory comment written in 2012 by Steyn which Michael E Mann found uncomfortable, resulted he alleged, in a ‘glaring look’ a from a fellow shopper, a complete stranger, in the local supermarket. This ‘look’ this life changing event, was in Mann’s ‘view’ a direct result of the brief comment Steyn had made in his blog post.
The stranger was not presented to the court to confirm his disparaging look at Mann was as a result of the Steyn post? We will never know if it was real or imagined by Mann.
That is the key issue with the court’s verdict.
The guilty verdict was not based on facts it was only based on circumstantial evidence, on ‘feelings’ unverified feelings, unverified outcomes. As Steyn said in his final summing up of the case, ‘No case to answer’
Truth, is no longer the safety net of legal defence in our modern society. The legal process, or Lawfare is now an open agent of the established elite, of the ‘acceptable view’ holders only. Facts and truth play no part in the courts final verdict.
Vexatious claims/activities designed to control freedom of speech such as this, relying on legal and court processes holding the victims hostage through procedure, in this case spanning 12 years! This case should never have been brought. Sadly we are where we are. We need to now reflect on what we are to do about i?.
Like so many others here, my heart sank on hearing the verdict.
We must give Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg all the support they need, both financial and moral to help them to get over this ridiculous Washington DC court case. It was a farce.
Steyn was his own worst enemy. He should have confined himself to the only argument which was likely to work. That is, calmly show the state of critical opinion of the HS at the time he made his statement asserting fraud. He would then have been able to show that he came to his conclusions sincerely, was well informed, held a view, which, whether right or wrong, was reasonable and rationally arrived at, and that there was no need to invoke malice or recklessness for his statements.
As it was he got sidetracked into irrelevancy with the Sandusky/Stanier stuff, which was totally irrelevant, and could only give a jury the impression that he was determined to try and associate Mann with the two criminals. When, whatever Mann’s views about them may have been, that had nothing to do with the question of whether one might reasonably judge there must have been fraud in the generation of the HS.
This was bound to be a total turn off for a jury. And so it was.
Should have said, that the defence thus compounded the original stupidity, which was the same thing. Verbal association of two things which had nothing whatever to do with each other, and where the attempt at making an association is distasteful.
Michel
While I agree, the strategy of highlighting Mann’s malicious personality via Dr Curry’s testimony and others was unnecessary and probably distracting for the jury. I am clear in my own observation of the trial, that Steyn in particular had no case to answer. He at no point ever suggested Mann was a paedophile. He simply claimed Penn State investigations were flawed/corrupt as evidenced in the Sandusky case conducted under Stanier’s influence. Why would such a man as Stanier be considered credible to investigate Mann’s behaviour in producing the HS.
That was the sum total of the two very separate investigations at Penn State.
It makes no difference now. The damage to the right of free speech by this legal ruling is done.
We are in a changed world where opinion clearly expressed and in good faith is now suppressed by Lawfare threat.
That is the point I was highlighting. The strategy of the defence was always up for question.
Dear Rod,
I agree with you in fact, but the case was still about defamation not “deformation”.
Cheers,
Bill
Bill digs deep and pulls out a spelling lame. This is how you “contribute to the discussion”?
Thanks for the correction of the spelling error Bill. I am fully aware of the difference. I will have a word with my spell checker…..
Now the trial went on for 3.5 weeks and we know about Mann’s last minute 100s of pages of extra crap being dismissed and given the legal toing and froing for a dozen years that’s a mighty big legal bill. So tell me with the award outcome was there any mention of costs being paid by Simberg and/or Steyn?
Answering my own question with a search we now know-
The jury awarded Mann $1 in compensatory damages from each plaintiff. It also awarded $1,000 in punitive damages from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn.
The jury found that the statements at issue were defamatory and published with reckless disregard for the truth. They also found that Mann suffered actual injury from the statements’ publication.
But from an attorney site we have-
Recovering Attorneys’ FeesAdditionally, if a plaintiff wishes to recover attorneys’ fees as compensation for their claim, they need to be awarded punitive damages. They must prove the defendant made the statement with actual malice (knowingly making a false statement)—or that they did so with reckless disregard for the statement’s truth.
How Much Does a Defamation Lawsuit Cost? – Minc Law
So basically the jury finding the peddo slur was simply ‘reckless disregard for the truth’ Mann has to largely take all his attorney fees from any of the million bucks he manages to from Steyn while he represented himself? If that’s true it’s a slap on the wrist and a Pyrrhic victory for Mann particularly if he has to go to Canada to collect more than the $1000 from Simberg.
As I understand it, Mann’s legal costs were met by the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, win or lose. So he gets to keep all the punitive damages.
Steyn will not pay.
At least, IMO, he should not.
All he has to do is exactly what Mann himself has done in case he lost to Tim Ball: Ignore it.
It is not even in evidence that he can pay a million dollars.
And as a matter of law, unless he can easily afford it, he cannot be forced to pay such an award.
On top of all of that, the SCOTUS has ruled that punitive damages cannot be more than 10x of the actual damages.
He’s probably going to pay.
Why do you say that?
I think it’s more likely that he will appeal if the Judge doesn’t reduce the amount.
This unappetizing ruling means we are closer to this.
When we then read Thomas Friedman’s Feb. 2 opinion piece in the New York Times, “Understanding the Middle East Through the Animal Kingdom.”
guess which people he claims are insects and which mammals?
It was never about science, that only gets in the way of a good meal.
How do we Go Fund Me to Mark Steyn? How do we Go FunK a thumb in the eye to Hockey stick-Mann?
“How do we Go Fund Me to Mark Steyn?”
The median estimate of his net worth is $10M. What’s yours?
I should have realized that this was coming. I already sent Michael the contact info for J.G Wentworth, but he won’t need it. If “billionaire” 45 can divert $50M from his acolytes for his lawyer bills, Mr. Steyn can certainly communize this obligation onto Greater Fooles here and elsewhere.
Your TDS is flaring up again, blob.
When is he going to pay the court costs as required in the lawsuit he lost to Dr. Ball?
He should. It would be predictably ironic if Dr. Ball’s estate got 2 paid. Once from the GoFundMe they set up after the trail. Then again from the GoFundMe to be set up by Mark Steyn to pay off his punitive damages.
Apparently Mark’s acerbic wit didn’t play well with a jury of Global Warming true believers.
Shocker there.
My question is why did the court system allow Mann et. al. to get away with jurisdiction shopping in this case in the first place?
Mark’s from Canada and lives in New Hampshire
Mann lives in Pennsylvania
Simburg lives in Wyoming
The National Review in which Mark’s opinion column that sparked the lawsuit was printed is based in New York
What’s DC got to do with it? Easy. Mann’s lawyers knew that a DC jury could likely be convinced to “punish” a climate denier regardless of any facts or evidence in the case.
They were right.
Again, though, the question is: why does our court system allow this type of thing to happen?
The National Review in which Mark’s opinion column that sparked the lawsuit was printed is based in New York
Nup incorporated in Washington DC-
NATIONAL REVIEW, INC. Company Profile | Washington, DC | Competitors, Financials & Contacts – Dun & Bradstreet (dnb.com)
Aah, wasn’t aware of that. My understanding is their office is in New York so I assumed that’s where they were incorporated. Thanks for the info and that might explain it.
The damages are against Steyn, not the National Review. If it’s how it was when my company won a big judgment, it has to be domesticated in the losing party’s State. This would cost well more that $1,000 so I guess Simburg can give them the middle finger.
Although I suspect it wouldn’t make Mr. Steyn feel too good, if garnishment and domestication games are initiated, Dr. Ball’s judgment could be good for a laugh. Can Mark become domiciled in Canada, where Mann owes the money?
Wouldn’t that be a hoot, if Ball’s estate gave the money right back to Mark? I think I’d wet my pants laughing if that came about.
DC = Deceitful & Corrupt
The picture is apt. A jury of clowns finding for a clown as plaintiff.
Open call for information: what questions EXACTLY was the jury foreperson asked, and what EXACTLY were their answers to each?
Pretend you’re explaining it to someone who’s been faithfully transcribing the entire trial but wasn’t there when the six cretins returned their verdict, because he lacked the clairvoyance to guess how long it would take half a dozen single-neuron microbes from the DC jury sewer to reconcile themselves to such a bad finding.
In other words, as Mark Steyn’s countryman would say, “let’s be precise!”
TIA,
BK
In case others are interested, the official details and verdict form are here
https://portal-dc.tylertech.cloud/app/RegisterOfActions/#/39E6B1D3C30C2BB8B4486558221C8C0F621E97A8C8499E9C46C8336E44F4123B/anon/portalembed
Mark Steyn should have paid closer attention to a credentialed world leader who once warned us in a speech about the financially existential threat of “Crimeant Slyance”. Or at least I thought that’s what he said?
There you have it. Our jury system exposed for what it has become.
Constitution? What Constitution?
Legal advice:
Always ask for a judge if you’re innocent, and a jury if you done it.
Just to be clear, my comment above is not a substitute for legal advice.
It IS legal advice.
If what follows below is true – and it is – this isn’t over by a long shot unless Steyn’s heart plays out first. I have few heroes in public life. Buying his stuff now.
From John Hinderaker at PowerLine: “In John Williams’ closing argument on behalf of Mann, he said that the jury should award punitive damages so that in the future, no one will dare engage in “climate denialism”–whatever that is–just as Donald Trump’s “election denialism” needs to be suppressed.”
The$1,000,000 jury decision had absolutely nothing to do with the case and everything to do with suppression of truthful speech. It might have seemed mean to say that Mann was the Jerry Sandusky of climate change (falsely exonerated by a non-investigation), but it is true. The truth hurts and Steyn was just too good at bringing it out.
Steyn should be awarded damages in the amount of the in-kind income Mann received in free legal services for his personal vendetta. Malice in deed.
Given that Mann admitted in court that everything he said about Judith Curry was untrue, would this not provide her every opportunity to sue Mann? It certainly appears that this had a negative impact on her career.
Also, it seems remarkable that the jury apparently ignored the statistical evidence provided during the trial, which was very thorough and cast huge doubt over the validity of Mann’s work, therefore supporting the comments made by the defendants?
Surely the judge can take this into account in terms of the money awarded?
A verdict based on feelings
I don’t care enough either way regarding the outcome of the trial to have much of an opinion. I’m really more interested in the science. Someone asked above to name one reconstruction that corroborates the original MBH98 and MBH99 temperature reconstructions. I figured I could satisfy that request with more than one. The number of reconstructions being published increases so much that this is only but a small subset which becomes increasingly more terse relative to what is available by 2023 so you’ll have to forgive me for not including everything. This is only what is currently in my personal archive and should not in any way be considered an exhaustive list.
1998 Jones 10.1191/095968398667194956 – High-resolution palaeoclimatic records for the last millennium: interpretation, integration and comparison with General Circulation Model control-run temperatures
1998 Pollack 10.1126/science.282.5387.279 – Climate change record in subsurface temperatures: A global perspective
2000 Crowley 10.1579/0044-7447-29.1.51 – How Warm was the Medieval Warm Period
2001 Briffa 10.1029/2000JD900617 – Low-frequency temperature variations from a northern tree ring density network
2004 Huang 10.1029/2004GL019781 – Merging information from different resources for new insights into climate change in the past and future
2005 Oerlemans 10.1126/science.1107046 – Extracting a climate signal from 169 glacier records
2005 Moberg 10.1038/nature03265 – Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data
2006 D’Arrigo 10.1029/2005JD006352 – On the long-term context for late twentieth century warming
2006 NRC 10.17226/11676 – Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years
2007 Wahl 10.1007/s10584-006-9105-7 – Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures
2010 Ljungqvist 10.1111/j.1468-0459.2010.00399.x – A new reconstruction of temperature variability in the extra‐tropical northern hemisphere during the last two millennia
2012 Li 10.1198/jasa.2010.ap09379 – The Value of Multiproxy Reconstruction of Past Climate
2012 Shakun 10.1038/nature10915 – Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation
2013 Marcott 10.1126/science.122802 – A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years
2013 Tingley 10.1038/nature11969 – https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11969
2014 Crowley 10.1002/2013EF000216 – Recent global temperature “plateau” in the context of a new proxy reconstruction
2016 Hakim 10.1002/2016JD024751 – The Last Millennium Climate Reanalysis Project
2016 Wilson 10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.12.005 – Last millennium northern hemisphere summer temperatures from tree rings
2017 PAGES2K 10.1038/sdata.2017.88 – A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era
2018 Esper – Large Scale Millennial-Length Temperature Reconstruction from Tree Rings
2019 Neukom 10.1038/s41586-019-1401-2 – No evidence for globally coherent warm and cold periods over the preindustrial Common Era
2019 PAGES2K 10.1038/s41561-019-0400-0 – Consistent multidecadal variability in global temperature reconstructions and simulations over the Common Era
2020 Kaufman 10.1038/s41597-020-0530-7 – Holocene global mean surface temperature, a multi-method reconstruction approach
2020 Westerhold 10.1126/science.aba6853 – An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years
2021 King 10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0661.1 – A Data Assimilation Approach to Last Millennium Temperature Field Reconstruction
2021 Osman 10.1038/s41586-021-03984-4 – Globally resolved surface temperatures since the Last Glacial Maximum
2021 Bova 10.1038/s41586-020-03155-x – Seasonal origin of the thermal maxima at the Holocene and the last interglacial
2021 Buntgen 10.1038/s41467-021-23627-6 – The influence of decision-making in tree ring-based climate reconstructions
2022 Thompson 10.1126/sciadv.abj6535 – Northern Hemisphere Vegetation Change Drives Holocene Thermal Maximum
2022 Erb 10.5194/cp-18-2599-2022 – Reconstructing Holocene temperatures in time and space using paleoclimate data assimilation
2022 Anchukaitis 10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107537 – Progress and uncertainties in global and hemispheric temperature reconstructions of the Common Era
I apologize for the typo. It seems as though I accidently put the link to the 2013 Tingley reconstruction instead of the title which I only noticed after a hyperlink appeared. The citation should look like the following.
2013 Tingley 10.1038/nature11969 – Recent temperature extremes at high northern latitudes unprecedented in the past 600 years
True, trendology isn’t about truth or even climate.
A strange definition of the word, you have.
Disappointed? Please. Given the venue being a DC-satellite kangaroo court, did you really expect the jury to consider the evidence. Naive in the extreme.
Well, a jury also cleared OJ.
Mann lost in his case against Dr. Ball and continues to refuse to pay.
Mann is scum.
He knows he’s wrong.