Media, Society, Torts, Uncategorized

Like A Rolling Stone: Defamation Lawsuit Against Magazine Reinstated By Second Circuit

rolling-stone-rapeThe United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has reinstated the defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone by the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.  The decision by Judge Katherine Forrest is an interesting application of the rarely successful “group defamation” claim. The decision comes as the Rolling Stone magazine itself has been put up for sale.  As I have previously written, the editors failed on almost every level in the scandal, including failing to fire author Sabrina Erdely for the article alleging the gang rape of a freshman identified as “Jackie” at the University of Virginia.  The panel in Elias v. Rolling Stone, 16-2465-cv, consisted of U.S. Circuit Judges José Alberto Cabranes and Raymond Lohier Jr., with U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York sitting by designation. The vote was 2-1.

The lawsuit brought by  members of Phi Kappa Psi was dismissed in 2016 by U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel who viewed the defamation associated with the fraternity to be “too vague and remote from the plaintiffs’ circumstances to be ‘of and concerning’ them.”  However, the Second Circuit found that a group defamation claim was valid for two of the three fraternity members: George Elias and Ross Fowler while rejecting the claim of Stephen Hadford.

One of the best known group defamation cases occurred in 1952 in Neiman-Marcus v. Lait, 13 FRD 311 (SDNY 1952), employees of that high-end story sued the author of a book titled “U.S.A. Confidential.” The book claimed that some of the models at the store and all of the saleswomen in the Dallas store were “call girls.” It further stated that most of the salesmen in the men’s department were “faggots.” The issue came down to the size of the group. With 382 saleswomen and models, the court found that the group was too large. However, with the 25 salesmen, the court found that an action could be maintained.

Courts consider but rarely find small-group defamation.  One successful claim occurred in Brady v. Ottaway Newspapers, 84 A.D.2d 226, 445 N.Y.S.2d 786 (2d Dep’t 1981), based on a newspaper editorial imputing criminality to 53 unnamed, unindicted police officers.  Brady found that “[b]ecause the group is small and includes few individuals, reference to the individual plaintiff reasonably follows from the statement and the question of reference is left for the jury.” Id. at 231.

In this case, the Second Circuit found that

“while it is a close call, we conclude on balance that the complaint plausibly alleged that the purportedly defamatory statements in the Article were ‘of and concerning’ Elias and Fowler individually. At this stage of the litigation, Plaintiffs need only plead sufficient facts to make it plausible—not probable or even reasonably likely—that a reader familiar with each Plaintiff would identify him as the subject of the statements at issue. With regard to the Article, Elias and Fowler have met this burden.”

 

Both Elias and Fowler were identified after the article came out, and received harassing texts, emails and comments from peers, co-workers and reporters.  As for Hadford, the panel found that his claim was based largely on his being a member of the fraternity and riding a bike.  In the article, Jackie claimed to have seen “one of the boys riding his bike on the grounds.” That was not enough for the majority.

In his dissent, Lohier believed that the panel had exceeded the scope of state precedent that it was meant to apply in such cases.

The decision is an important addition to group defamation case law.  The panel concludes “The District Court erred by evaluating the Article’s various allegations against Phi Kappa Psi in isolation, rather than considering them in the context of the Article as a whole. Taking the allegations in the Article together, a reader could plausibly conclude that many or all fraternity members participated in alleged gang rape as an initiation ritual and all members knowingly turned a blind eye to the brutal crimes. Indeed, Erdely suggested such an interpretation in her Podcast interview.”

I agree with the opinion, which only reaffirms the terrible judgment of the editors at the magazine before and after the publication of this clearly defamatory article.

Here is the opinion: Rolling Stone Decision

 

15 thoughts on “Like A Rolling Stone: Defamation Lawsuit Against Magazine Reinstated By Second Circuit”

  1. Nothing Is Sacred. But it’s the end of an era and that end started the day the music died. Coincidentally the same day MTV turned music into a …..what? If i weren’t for Jackie Evancho there would be no one in the entertainment industry under 50 capable of singing….

    But that’s strike two Strike One i

    It’s the 20th and not one article on the do nothing congress committing political suicide. To quote one of my very old favorites made popular again by a former Sheriff I hope they like spending the rest of their lives barking at the moon since they chose to cross over to the dark side.

    Mixed metaphors really are fun so another one is the Socialist Liberal Left had to wait until Lykoff did the translation and plagiarized the original as none of them speak Greek.. Only to discover German and Russian had got there first. Speaking of their former party platform…. and speaking of their former party platform

    is it true the bulk of Clinton’s now down to $10 a copy book sales are being used to prop up the platform. No that’s not accurate True they are underneath the table but the reason it was all Greek to them. But I see Lykoff has the newly plagiarized version out in Californa speak. Should be a best seller.

    Who did Yoda plagiarize? Starting with Plato….the list is sooooooooo long and they are having trouble with one Greek word Δημοκρατικός something the left has had little use for throughout its history.

    But to bring it back on topic.Ένας κυλιόμενος σοσιαλιστής δεν συγκεντρώνει εκλογικές ψήφους They should have waited for Google Translate.

    The Republicans In NAME ONLY certainly deserve the blame even if they are the right wing of the left. They had eight years seven months and 20 days and all they could come up with was ACA Heavy.

  2. Does anyone know if other than legal fees and settlements/judgement costs if the Jackie affair actually cost Rolling Stone money? They got tons of publicity (even bad publicity is publicity) and I don’t think their readers are veryconcerned with journalistc integrity–they just like good stories. Wouldn’t it be ironic to the extreme if the bottom line was they turned a net profit on the deal.

  4. Wenner may be a counter-culture icon, but he’s no financial genius:

    “In 2001, Jann Wenner sold a 50 percent stake in Us Weekly to the Walt Disney Company for $40 million, then borrowed $300 million five years later to buy back the stake. The deal saddled the company with debt for more than a decade, preventing it from investing as much as it might have in its magazines.”

    His seller’s remorse caused him to cough up 7.5x what he sold it for.

    He also turned down a chance to sell to MTV and Sumner Rothstein’s (aka Sumner Redstone’s) media empire for large chunk of Viacom stock, back when MTV actually played videos and was a cultural force, and not the reality TV-dreck peddler it is today.

    Maybe he should smoke a bit less dope and stayed at Berkeley a bit longer (specifically, the Haas School of Business), although in the end he’s done alright for himself.

    As for the rape article: hey, you make sensational claims to foster sensational sales, hopefully the sensational verdicts and jury awards will follow.

    1. Ter ber that’s all they’ve got to divert people from the Awan bros scandal, Obama wiretapping Trump, his people as well as journalist Sheryl Atkinson, Lois Lerner and IRS, HRC’s compromised emails

  6. What’s the frreakin’ problem?? The story fit the narrative. Hell, Obama suspended due process on campus because of rapes just like this!. Read what Camille Paglia has to say about this. A common sense feminist.

  7. This should be a criminal case and the punishment should fit the crime. If convicted the individual writers and editors should be put on the concrete and rolled over with a huge stone.

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