Climate scientist Michael Mann on Thursday won his defamation lawsuit against Rand Simberg, a former research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Mark Steyn, a contributor to National Review.
The trial took observers back to 2012, the heyday of the blogosphere and a time of vicious polemics over the existence of global warming, what psychology researcher and climate disinformation blogger John Cook called a “savage era.”
The six-judge jury announced its unanimous verdict after a four-week trial in District of Columbia Superior Court and a full day of deliberations. They found both Mr Simberg and Mr Steyn guilty of defaming Dr Mann by making multiple false statements and awarded the scientist $1 in damages from each author.
The jury also found that the writers had made their statements with “maliciousness, hatred, ill will, revenge or deliberate intent to harm” and awarded punitive damages of $1,000 against Mr. Shiberg and $1 million against Mr. Stein, in order to prevent others from doing the same.
“This is a win for science and it’s a win for scientists,” Dr. Mann said.
In 2012, Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn drew parallels between the controversy over Dr. Mann and the scandal surrounding Jerry Sandusky, the former football coach at the University of Pennsylvania who was convicted of sexually assaulting children. Dr. Mann was a professor at Penn State at the time.
“I am pleased that the jury found in my favor on half of the statements at issue in this case, including finding that my statement that Dr. Mann engaged in data manipulation was not defamatory,” Mr. Simberg said in an emailed statement his lawyer. .
Mr Steyn’s manager, Melissa Howes, wrote in an email: “We have always maintained that Mann never suffered any real injury from the disputed statement. And today, twelve years later, the jury awarded him one dollar in damages. The punitive damages award of one million dollars should be subject to due process review under US Supreme Court precedent.”
The two sides argued for days over the truth or falsity of the reports, presenting evidence that included unflattering emails between Dr. Mann and colleagues, excerpts from Penn State and National Science Foundation investigations that cleared Dr. Mann of academic misconduct , other scientists who testified that Dr. Mann had ruined their reputations and a detailed but controversial critique of his research methods by a statistician.
“It is constitutionally purposefully difficult to win defamation suits in cases involving matters of public concern and prominent public figures,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a law professor at the University of Utah.
Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn testified that they honestly believed what they wrote.
In statements to the court at the start and again at the end of the trial, Mr Stein said he stood “by the truth of every word I wrote about Michael”.
“Inflammatory does not amount to defamation,” Mr. Simberg’s lawyer, Victoria Weatherford, said in her closing statement. “Rud is just a guy, just a blogger expressing his true opinions on an issue he thinks is important. This is an inconvenient truth about Michael Mann.”
Dr. Mann claimed that he lost grant funding after the blog posts and was barred from at least one research collaboration because his reputation had suffered. The defendants argued that the star of Dr. Mann has gone on to establish himself as one of the most accomplished climate scientists working today.
The presiding judge, Alfred Irving, stressed to the jury that it was not their job to decide whether or not global warming is happening. “I knew we were walking a fine line from a climate change trial to a libel trial,” he said earlier while debating which witnesses to allow.
The story of this lawsuit is not over.
In 2021, Judge Irving, along with another DC Superior Court judge, ruled that the Competitive Enterprise Institute and National Review could not be held liable. The publishers did not meet the “actual malice” standard imposed on public figures suing for defamation, the judges ruled, meaning that employees of the two organizations did not publish Mr. Simberg’s and Mr. Steyn’s posts knowing that were false, nor do they have a “reckless indifference” to whether the publications were false.
The lawyers of Dr. Mann said they would appeal that earlier decision. Asked about the Competitive Enterprise Institute and National Review, John Williams said, “They’re next.”