National Post- Jury awards climate scientist Michael Mann $1 million in defamation lawsuit
During the trial, Steyn represented himself, but said through his manager Melissa Howes that he would be appealing the $1 million award in punitive damages, saying it would have to face “due process scrutiny.”
“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.”
Yeah, that will be overturned. Punitive damages a million times the compensatory damages are not allowed. It’d be a stretch to have punitive damages at ten times the compensatory damages.
And Steyn now has a million reasons to appeal. This is going to end up in front of SCOTUS eventually.
“This is going to end up in front of SCOTUS eventually.”
If the appeal court reduces the damages to $1 – end of story. Also with $1 in damages, no costs should be awarded.
The Supreme Court should hear the Alex Jones and the Trump rape case where damages are stupidly excessive.
excusez moi, mais cet ‘système de jury’ resemble le merde.
a notorious ‘child abuse’ case aka ‘little rascals’ prime example.
interviewed a juror; response: “l (emphasis mine) FELT he was guilty”
?
felt?
a life altering decision based on feeeeeeeeeelings?
what of the grand sum total FORENSIC evidence swayed you?
‘feelings’? where’s the BEYOND [reasonable doubt] part in that?
l got called for duty made sure they knew l was glad because from what was in the news the s.o.b. was clearly guilty. it worked. they never asked again in 30 friggin years.
The battle was important even if this outcome was disappointing. To continue the metaphor, it’s a war not a single battle. Every skirmish chips away at the opposing side’s narrative. People are slow to change but the financial pain they are feeling from anti-energy policies is forcing them to challenge what they have been told is an unquestionable climate doctrine.
It’s a fine for heresy, people. Welcome to the climate auto-da-fe. The good, brainwashed, leftard citizens of DC would have burned Steyn at the stake, if that option had been on the table. After all, in the words of Mr. Sparklesocks, he’s clearly a racist misogynist with unacceptable views.
The only damage he suffered was being “called” on being willfully misleading (gentle words) in support of a political movement.. The fact is.. Politics doesn’t belong in court..
This case of “convict him for the cause” highlights that perfectly.. The jury was not qualified to judge such a great mann’s work.. bla bla bla..
Slap him with a 1000 000 and go home and sort your garbage before it starts to stink.. Whatever..
“The jury in Superior Court of the District of Columbia found that Simberg and Steyn made false statements, awarding Mann $1 in compensatory damages from each writer. 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.””
This is odd. Essentially nominal compensatory damages, but huge punitive damages. Is there precedent for this?
What bothers me is Dr.Mann lost to Dr. Tim Ball in Canada! If I understood Dr.Ball’s books correctly—-“The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science” and ” Human Caused Global Warming–The Biggest Deception In History”. Dr. Tim Ball challenged Dr. Mann because he left out The Medieval Warming period and treated it as if it never happened!
This fact that Dr.Mann leafed out the Medieval warming period was also mentioned by Dr. Patrick Moore in his book—-” Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom”!—–This fact would destroy Dr Mann’s idea that climate was following a hockey stick!!!
Dr. Ball also implied that Dr. Mann was being fully funded! Even though Dr. Ball won the case he died shortly after bankrupted!
The judge in the Steyn case specifically noted that the science was not on trial here, only whether the posts were defamatory. Mann admitted he hadn’t paid a dime in legal fees, was caught “miss-leading” the jury on the size of a grant applied for and not gained (almost got away with the wrong number, admitted on cross-examination that their declaration was wrong), and had a half-dozen other little legally wrong things that could have got the case dismissed.
The voice actors reading the transcripts were great podcasts.
The classic defence to a defamation trial is the truth, so the science does matter. I use the term “science” loosely as it’s been abused for 20+ years now.
It’s said Steyn is close to running out of money. I wouldn’t know but it is a damn shame if true. He is now in a wheelchair? Sad.
ab
We helped Dr. Ball…….
I feel Mark Steyn took on Dr Mann largely for his friend Dr. Tim Ball!
Mark Steyn saw this through to the bitter end, and finally revealed Mann to the Court in an expert manner.
Steyn’s closing argument ;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfHgsNr0II4
#2 & #3 linked below #1 clip
Thanks Maikeru!