Just Desserts

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Attorneys representing Nick Sandman, the Covington Kid who was the subject of Big Left’s two minutes’ hate a couple weeks ago, have started the wheels rolling on lawsuits.

Over fifty of them:

“The legal counsel representing Nick and his family, Todd McMurtry and experienced libel and defamation lawyer L. Lin Wood of Atlanta, have said they will seek justice for the harm allegedly done to the teen,” The Enquirer reported. “McMurtry is with the law firm of Hemmer Defrank Wessels and has practiced law in Greater Cincinnati since 1991. He said a team of seven lawyers has been working full-time to review the media accounts of what happened.”
The letters come in response to the media’s smearing of Sandmann after a selectively edited clip of an incident on January 19, 2019, went viral that showed Sandmann standing face-to-face with Native American Nathan Phillips, who was beating a drum in Sandmann’s face.

The list of people and entities served includes:

  1. The Washington Post
  2. The New York Times
  3. Cable News Network, Inc. (CNN)
  4. The Guardian
  5. National Public Radio
  6. TMZ
  7. Atlantic Media Inc.
  8. Capitol Hill Publishing Corp.
  9. Diocese of Covington
  10. Diocese of Lexington
  11. Archdiocese of Louisville
  12. Diocese of Baltimore
  13. Ana Cabrera (CNN)
  14. Sara Sidner (CNN)
  15. Erin Burnett (CNN)
  16. S.E. Cupp (CNN)
  17. Elliot C. McLaughlin (CNN)
  18. Amanda Watts (CNN)
  19. Emanuella Grinberg (CNN)
  20. Michelle Boorstein (Washington Post)
  21. Cleve R. Wootson Jr. (Washington Post)
  22. Antonio Olivo (Washington Post)
  23. Joe Heim (Washington Post)
  24. Michael E. Miller (Washington Post)
  25. Eli Rosenberg (Washington Post)
  26. Isaac Stanley-Becker (Washington Post)
  27. Kristine Phillips (Washington Post)
  28. Sarah Mervosh (New York Times)
  29. Emily S. Rueb (New York Times)
  30. Maggie Haberman (New York Times)
  31. David Brooks (New York Times)
  32. Shannon Doyne
  33. Kurt Eichenwald
  34. Andrea Mitchell (NBC/MSNBC)
  35. Savannah Guthrie (NBC)
  36. Joy Reid (MSNBC)
  37. Chuck Todd (NBC)
  38. Noah Berlatsky
  39. Elisha Fieldstadt (NBC)
  40. Eun Kyung Kim
  41. HBO
  42. Bill Maher
  43. Warner Media
  44. Conde Nast
  45. GQ
  46. Heavy.com
  47. The Hill
  48. The Atlantic
  49. Bustle.com
  50. Ilhan Omar
  51. Elizabeth Warren
  52. Kathy Griffin
  53. Alyssa Milano
  54. Jim Carrey

Defamation cases are very hard to win. Justifiably so.

But I hope Sandmann cleans clock on this.

16 thoughts on “Just Desserts”

  2. I hope all those kids get well compensated, especially that main kid. They deserve every dollar they get.

  3. Mitch,

    One of our attorneys that frequent this forum can probably shed light on this, When the first attorney stepped up to sue the self righteous left wing haters, he stated that children do not have the same burden of proof. Further, if these cases get to a jury, I believe that neither Nick, nor his grandchildren’s children, may never have to ever work a day in their lives. I say good for him.

    The person that I was most disappointed in for her chiming in, is SE Cupp. Perhaps she has gone full lefty.

  4. bosshoss429, your comment about SE Cupp is true, but I think she was just the most visible or vocal tip of the So-called Conservatives iceberg. The TruConservatives at the NR and the Bulwark have all been just as disappointing (read infuriating for my purposes), but perhaps not enough to legally liable as Ms Cupp.

  8. Think about this: no one in the world has deeper pockets than The Washington Post’s owner Jeff Bezos.

  9. I’m not a lawyer, but the “Absence of Malice” shield we were taught about in journalism school essentially means that a media outlet can’t be sued for libel for reporting news “in the public interest” unless they do so “maliciously”. Malice in this case usually means knowingly publishing defamatory information they knew to be false at the time. Under that standard, the media outlets were protected in sharing the initial video. Once additional facts and context were available, though, anyone who continued to spread the original story could be at risk. Also, libel is a harder case to prove when the subject is a public figure; something Sandman was not (at least at the time). There are a lot of shadings in there, which is why there are lawyers (or there are a lot of lawyers, which is why there are shadings).

    It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Beyond the libel issue, there are terroristic threats and other pricklies wrapped up in this.

  10. NW, as someone who (very, very briefly) wanted to be a constitutional lawyer I have to say they might win a few cases because I do remember some people and outlets clinging to the story post having the other video come out and those people could be hit with major libel suits, but determining damages will be very, very hard in any way.

  11. The Right will adopt the lawfare tactics of the Left if it wants to win.
    I do not understand how Facebook and twitter can be allowed to publish inflammatory material that costs people their jobs. If it went the other way – if Facebook and Twitter “mobs” cost lefties their jobs, Leftist lawyers would slam them with lawsuit after lawsuit, and legislation to punish Facebook and Twitter would be introduced at the federal and state level. Judges would make rulings that forced them OOB.
    Facebook and Twitter exercise editorial control over user content. Get them in a courtroom.

  12. MP while you are technically right anyone who loses their job because of stuff they post (heck, I almost did once) I feel no sympathy for if the company that hired them has a social media policy (Most companies do these days) as long as they are the ones posting, if someone else says something about them that then gets them fired that is something SCOTUS needs to eventually rule on. Its a legal gray area that the founding fathers could have never imagined and Congress has no business making a law about.

  13. PoD, I am talking about people using apps to conspire — for instance, to set up the antifa mob that attacked tucker Carlson. You couldn’t do that with newspaper or television media — because the people who control content at newspapers and television wouldn’t want to be liable for what happened. Twitter & Facebook claim they exercise control over what is posted. Bust them. Break them. Bring them to their knees.

  14. Win lose or draw, the kids still come out ahead.

    The SPLC has paved the path for draining the blood from it’s enemies in court. Ironically enough, they are on the receiving end of that treatment right now, too.

    IMHO, this is a golden opportunity for Tort lawyers to redeem themselves with much of the country. A little pro bono work spread out judiciously will reap big benefits for them, and really, the financial exposure is really limited for the plaintiff’s lawyers. Most of the scummy, leftist individuals and groups put all the evidence necessary right out on the interwebs, so there’s no need to spend hours digging through documents.

    I have a cartoon bubble in my head of an army of tort lawyers walking around the floor of the 2020 Democrat convention, shooting summons’ out to the crowd with T shirt guns. Would be so sweet.

  15. Agreed, we do need some low level courts to rule in this so it will make it to the Supremes within 5 years. We are literally in uncharted legal territory here considering the machines used to propogate those horrors are less than 25 years old, in wide public use I mean.

  16. And I’d love to see Cuckerberg (old reference, ask Swiftiee, he probably remembers) dragged into a courtroom over this.

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