Mark Steyn v Michael Mann – Bad news all round – Steyn lost – Mann was awarded ONE DOLLAR for defamation. but Steyn was fined a million bucks for malice

From here:

A Bitterly Disappointing Verdict | Power Line (powerlineblog.com)

“Today the jury returned its verdict in the defamation trial of Michael Mann v. Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn. The verdict was disappointing to those of us who followed the case and thought that Michael Mann presented a pathetically inadequate case.

The jury actually agreed: it found that the defendants had defamed Mann, but awarded only a token $1 in damages, since Mann had failed to prove any.

But it found that both Simberg and Steyn acted with actual malice–they didn’t actually believe what they said about Mann–and awarded punitive damages in the amount of $1,000 against Simberg, and $1 million against Steyn.”

The judge has to agree the punitive damages of a million bucks, there can be an appeal and it could go to the SCOTUS.

Of course, the case should never have been tried in the first place under the First Amendment , it was heard I Washington DC. The time allotted to Steyn for his defence was a fraction of the time given not the Plaintiff, Michael Mann. It took 12 years for the trail to even happen!

Here’s a 70-minute discussion on the issue from the team at the Climate Change Roundtable.

Mann vs. Steyn: A Disgrace to the Profession – Climate Change Roundtable #97 (youtube.com)

“The Climate Trial of the Century is over, and the result is an absolutely travesty of justice. A D.C. jury ruled yesterday that Mark Steyn must pay $1 in compensatory damages and an absurd $1 million in punitive damages to climate media star Michael Mann for his claimed defamation. His co-defendant, Rand Simberg, was socked with paying $1 in compensatory damages, but only $1,000 in punitive damages.

We followed the trial every day for nearly four weeks, and we can tell you that it was a disgrace to the professions in our legal system, the “profession” of juries to administer justice, and the professions in alarmist climate science. In short, the whole thing was a disgrace.

On episode 97 of Climate Change Roundtable, The Heartland Institute’s Anthony Watts, H. Sterling Burnett, Linnea Lueken, and Jim Lakely break down what happened in the trial, how this criminally unjust jury decision came to be, and what this means for the First Amendment rights of anyone who questions alarmist dogma in public.”

Onwards!

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