Sarah Palin has filed suit against the NY Times. A June 14 editorial connected Palin to congresswoman Gabby Giffords being seriously wounded in the 2011 shooting. Mrs. Palin claims the NY Times conduct was committed knowingly, intentionally, willfully, wantonly and maliciously, with the intent to harm. Libel suits against a well-known public figure or entity are very hard to prove -- one has to prove conscious malicious intent and real damages. But I think Palin has a good chance with this one because I think she can show everything required. She is suing for $75,000 damages, but, if she wins, large dollar punitive damages would also be assessed. It will be interesting if the Times wants a jury trial or not (my guess is not), and what judge ends up hearing the case...... or if the Times settles. My guess is Palin will not settle but will conduct hellaciously embarrassing interrogations and depositions. My other assumption is that Palin will be skewered unmercifully by the media.
Well, you're wrong. There's no falsifiable assertion here. NY Times said Palin incited the shooting. Whether that's true--i.e., whether Palin's remarks influenced the shooting of Gabby Giffords--is ultimately a question of opinion. It cannot be proven true or false. Judge will throw this out on a motion to dismiss. No need for a jury.
Palin is profoundly stupid. She is imitating her new idol, the current so-called president who sues everybody for everything - or at least threatens to sue. I hope it costs Palin tons of legal fees and that she loses. I think this is a vain attempt by the snarky quitter to get her name in the news.
Except, IIRC, the Times, after participating is the nefarious speculation in 2011, soon after admitted it was all wrong, and it has since been shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the Palin slur was wrong. Yet the Times repeated it just the other day which clearly shows conscious malicious intent. But we shall see; betting on court cases is a risky business.
The editorial was published online on June 14, the day a gunman opened fire at a baseball field where Republican lawmakers were practicing for an annual charity game. The editorial said there was a link between political incitement and the mass shooting in Arizona that severely wounded Representative Gabby Giffords and said that Ms. Palin’s “political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs.” The Times later issued a correction, saying that there was no established link between political statements and the shooting and that the map circulated by Ms. Palin’s PAC had depicted electoral districts, not individual Democratic lawmakers, beneath the stylized cross hairs. The NYT Opinion Twitter account also sent out the correction about the lack of a link, apologizing and saying that it appreciated that readers had pointed out the mistake. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/business/sarah-palin-sues-new-york-times.html
The NYTimes apologized because they did something very wrong and they knew it. But the suit won't be decided on that; it will be decided on malicious intent or not. I think Palin has a very good chance though malicious intent is pretty hard to show.
There is no way that Palin influenced the Gifford shooter in any manner or form, and the Times knew that and knows that. Palin doesn't have to prove anything but the Times must show that there was a connection between Palin and the shooter with journalistic and reasonable certainty.
NO, I got it right. She was all hot to get a cabinet post in a Trump administration, but he gave her the cold shoulder.
Yeah? Well, you know, that's just like your opinion man. Thankfully, the courts do not adhere to your made-up standards. As the plaintiff, Palin has a burden of proof to meet. One thing she must prove is that the NY Times made a false and defamatory statement against her. Every state recognizes that the statement must be falsifiable--i.e., capable of being proven true or false. The standard is really high. I can't imagine any court would say that the NY Time's statement was capable of being proven one way or the other. This case is going bye-bye at motion to dismiss stage.
Palin does not have to show she did not collude with the shooter. The NYTimes has to prove there was a connection in the facts of the case. But they cannot do that. It is virtually universally accepted that there was no connection. Even the NYTimes admitted it and apologized for it. So to win her case Palin DOES NOT HAVE TO PROVE there was no connection. What she has to show is that the NYTimes acted consciously (easily done) with malicious intent (not so easily done.) Whether you like or dislike Palin will have no bearing -- that's zero, nada, nothing -- on the suit.
You're shifting the goal post. I thought NYTimes said Palin "influenced" the shooter. That's quite different from saying that she "colluded" with the shooter. Palin could probably prove that she didn't collude with the shooter. Indeed, she would have to do so if the NYTimes said that. But instead she has to show that she didn't influence the shooter. It doesn't matter that the NYTimes retracted the story. It was still an opinion that cannot be proven true or false. All due respect sir, but where are you getting this from? It seems like you're making up the standard that you think should apply instead of researching the standard that the courts apply in these instances. The fact is that the NYTimes cannot know what influenced the shooter. So the fact that they apologized for writing the story doesn't amount to a concession that Palin did not influence the shooter. Unless the NYTimes could read the shooter's mind, they couldn't know. Based on your logic, anyone who brings a libel or defamation suit will automatically win if the other side cannot prove that the statement is true. But that's not how it works. The burden of evidence is on the party that brings the case--not the defendant.
Palin should get a change of venue to Montana or some such Red State, claiming she could never get a fair hearing in New York. Nor California, Washington State, etc. Moi r > g Across an immense, unguarded, ethereal border, Canadians, cool and unsympathetic, regard our America with envious eyes and slowly and surely draw their plans against us.
LIBEL NEWS: Sarah Palin’s defamation suit against New York Times resurrected by appeals court. “A federal appeals court on Tuesday reversed a judge’s decision dismissing former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against the New York Times for a 2017 editorial that suggested an image produced byPalin’s political action committee incited the 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona. The appellate panel said Judge Jed Rakoff of U.S. District Court in Manhattan in 2017 had relied on facts outside of legal filings in the case to dismiss the suit against The Times by Palin, who was the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008.” if that CNBC link doesn't work for you, here’s another story, and here’s a link to the Second Circuit opinion. The Second Circuit tends to be pretty friendly to media defendants in general.
