libel lawsuits

The verdicts bring an end to a televised trial that Depp had hoped would help restore his reputation, though it turned into a spectacle of a vicious marriage.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff made the assertion in a written decision as he rejected post-trial claims from Palin’s lawyers against the newspaper.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff made the ruling with a jury still deliberating at a New York City trial where the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate testified last week. The judge said Palin had failed to show that The Times had acted out of malice, something required in libel lawsuits involving public figures.

Sarah Palin once seemed headed to a seat of power. On Thursday, she testified in a trial that could prove more consequential.

The famed attorney alleges that the cable news network provided misleading coverage of his arguments during the Donald Trump impeachment trial.

A months-long war of words between CNN and Project Veritas has escalated into an actual libel suit. On Tuesday, James O’Keefe’s operation filed a complaint in Georgia after a CNN anchor discussed Twitter’s suspension of Project Veritas and attempted to explain that “this is part of a much broader crackdown … by social media giants on accounts that are promoting misinformation.”

If defamation suits, even valid ones, are successful, long-standing First Amendment protections could be weakened; aggrieved subjects of news stories, especially those with deep pockets, may be encouraged to go after media companies of all kinds, not just hyperpartisan ones. And long, expensive court battles could put them out of business.

Don’t look now, but in the past few weeks, libel lawsuits are failing left and right in New York state. On Tuesday alone, the New York Times beat Donald Trump while the New York Post prevailed over a bad photo choice. The former suit got most of the attention, but it’s the latter that provides the best example why the world’s media capital is suddenly more hospitable — at least, legally — for media companies.

Netflix has scored a First Amendment victory against a law firm that advises the rich and powerful throughout the world. On Wednesday, a California federal judge granted the streamer’s motion to dismiss libels claims made by the law firm of Mossack Fonseca over The Laundromat.

The suit fails because Trump hasn’t shown actual malice on the part of an author who wrote that Trump’s campaign was soliciting Russia’s help in 2020.

The lawsuit concerns two opinion articles that tied the 2016 Trump election campaign to Russia. A week ago, the campaign filed a similar action against The New York Times.

CNN, HuffPost and Rolling Stone incorrectly said Joe Arpaio was an ex-felon, but U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth won’t fault Chris Cuomo’s “mistake in legal nomenclature” and rejects the controversial sheriff’s bid to establish actual malice from “leftist” bias.