{"id":547,"date":"2007-03-09T13:26:04","date_gmt":"2007-03-09T19:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/index.php\/2007\/03\/09\/tag-it-bag-it-put-it-on-the-slab\/"},"modified":"2007-03-09T13:38:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-09T19:38:00","slug":"tag-it-bag-it-put-it-on-the-slab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=547","title":{"rendered":"Tag It, Bag It, Put It On The Slab"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blois Olson’s suit against Michael Brodkorb has been tossed on a summary judgement<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the leftybloggers who last year hopped about and screeched like poo-flinging howler monkeys at the notion that their arch-nemesis was getting his comeuppance?<\/p>\n

As this is written?<\/p>\n

[crickets<\/a>]<\/p>\n

[more crickets<\/a>]<\/p>\n

[female crickets<\/a>]<\/p>\n

[snarky crickets<\/a>\u00a0who need new material]<\/p>\n

[rich crickets with Hungarian accents<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Oh, it’s not complete silence.\u00a0 Over at Norwegianity (the left’s one-stop shop for calm reasoning), MNob – a lawyer – has the goods.\u00a0 Or some goods<\/a>.\u00a0 (And has them with immense speed.\u00a0 An emailer offline asks us to “note the speed with which [MNob] obtained the order.\u00a0 You can’t get court docs over the internet – you have to go down to the courthouse to obtain them.\u00a0 Meaning\u00a0either MNob is an obsessed stalker of Brodkorb’s, or she has someone in the Dakota County court clerks office.\u00a0 I’m betting on both<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

MNob writes:<\/p>\n

[Brodkorb’s motion to dismiss] was granted primarily because Blois Olson stipulated that he (Olson) was a limited-purpose public figure. (Par. 2)<\/em> As a public figure, under the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan<\/em>, Olson would have had to prove on this summary judgment motion that there is some admissible evidence that Brodkorb acted with actual malice. (Id.)<\/em> The court found that Olson hadn\u2019t done so. That is, Olson can’t prove that Brodkorb knew the statements to false at the time Brodkorb made them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I’m no lawyer, but I’ve spent a bit of time in court.\u00a0 I’ve also worked as a journalist, so I’ve had a bit of experience learning how defamation cases work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As I understand it – lawyers, please help me out here – but a summary judgement\u00a0generally only happens if\u00a0a judge finds that a case is so utterly devoid of merit that it’d be a waste of the court’s time to pursue it at all.\u00a0 The rule of summary judgements, in fact, is “There is no genuine issue of material fact, and the movant is entitled judgment as a matter of law<\/em>.”\u00a0 In other words, Olson brought no game, and the judge put the entire case out of its misery.<\/p>\n

So – again, in my own deeply imperfect understanding of\u00a0civil procedure – it’s not that\u00a0Olson didn’t quiiiiiiite<\/em>\u00a0git ‘er done; it’s that nothing in any of his original filings\u00a0convinced the judge that the case had even a smidgen of merit.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nor could Olson prove that Brodkorb made a false statement with “reckless disregard” or with “serious doubts” as to its truth or falsity. Olson simply couldn’t reach the standard of proof for public figure defamation, something that is very difficult under the Sullivan<\/em> standard.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

True – public figures have a harder time of things in defamation cases.\u00a0 But again, MNob’s paragraph implies that there was a “day in court”, where Olson (or his attorneys) tried, and failed, to make the charge stick.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 It was a summary judgement<\/em>; the judge ruled that there were no material facts at all<\/em>, absolutely nothing <\/em>that would justify having the case heard in court.<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/p>\n

Nada.<\/p>\n

The court determined that the efforts Brodkorb made were sufficient to shield him: \u201cDefendant did enough\u201d to investigate the statements. (Par. 7)<\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s all<\/strong> Brodkorb did: \u201cEnough.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MNob recites this as if it damns Brodkorb in any way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Colts “did enough” to beat the Bears in the Super Bowl.\u00a0 There’s no quibbling about how much is “enough” – it’s an emotionless, non-shaded, black and white threshold.<\/p>\n

The judge ruled that, since Olson is public enough, <\/em>the evidence supporting his defamation case was of\u00a0 so little merit, under the laws governing these things <\/em>(as opposed to the outrage of offended leftybloggers, or their impassioned yearning for justice) that it didn’t deserve <\/em>to be heard in court.<\/p>\n

MNob’s entire argument, essentially, is “the dog ate Blois’ homework!”.<\/p>\n

We can expect Brodkorb to trumpet this very loudly, but given the fact that virtually ALL the evidence is not only subject to a protective order of the court, but an “Attorney’s Eyes Only” protective order, even he doesn’t know all of the evidence that was considered by the court. Nor does Blois Olson.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is, indeed, possible.<\/p>\n

And again, I’m no lawyer.\u00a0 But as I understand things, if the judge issued a summary judgement dismissing the case, and yet there was plenty <\/em>of material fact that might have justified a trial, that’d be a reversible error that’d justify an appeal – something lower-court judges really don’t like.\u00a0 So I’m guessing – again, in my capacity as a goy <\/em>whose legal experience is representing himself, once (and successfully) – that the judge has a pretty solid reason for doing the legal equivalent of tossing the case in the circular file.
\nMNob:<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, it’s pretty obvious that Brodkorb\u2019s sources are the focus of the protective order, and the fact that he had several sources for the information came into play in the court’s decision. What\u2019s fascinating here is that Brodkorb seeks to claim the protections that any journalist in Minnesota gets in being able to protect sources (“Hey — two different dudes told me”), and be free of liability for defamation when he adheres to the bare minimum of journalistic standards. But in posting things to his “personal blog,” he prints things that no journalist with an ounce of ethics would go near (unless they were quoting Brodkorb himself as some sort of credible source on issues of, say, gastrointestinal diseases).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0Maybe, maybe not, but this is an utterly subjective judgement (“Is Brodkorb a good journalist?” – I’d say generally “yes”, leftybloggers will get kicked out of the club if they don’t chant “Tool Tool Tool Tool Tool” in rigid unison), that has nothing whatever to do with the demise of Blois Olson’s case.<\/em><\/p>\n

MNob again:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important to point out that truth is always a defense in a defamation claim and that this court did not<\/strong> make a determination as to the truth or falsity of what Brodkorb said (Par. 8)<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Honest, everyone – the fish I caught was thiiiiiiiiis biiiiiiiiig!<\/em>”<\/p>\n

The reason the court did not <\/strong>make a determination was because there were\u00a0no material facts <\/em><\/strong>justifying a trial!\u00a0 At all!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Rather, the court\u2019s focus was on whether he said what he said with \u201creckless disregard.\u201d That\u2019s hardly a high standard – that the statements might have been utterly false, but Brodkorb did not know that when he said so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The standard is what it is – but the fact is that the judge ruled that Blois Olson didn’t come close to showing anything like reckless disregard for the truth.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

What does all this mean in the long run? Pick only on public figures? Pick on people who might not be public figures, but whose ego makes them stipulate to being limited purpose public figures? Only run with untruths that two different dudes said were true?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You mean like\u00a0that\u00a0whole “Minnesota Democrats\u00a0Exposed is a paid GOP operation” bit?<\/p>\n

No.\u00a0\u00a0What it means is “grow up”, and stop\u00a0assuming the law means what you want it to, just because you reeeeeeeeeeeeeeallly want it to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Learned Foot – an attorney himself – writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a01) Blois Olson’s defamation suit<\/font><\/a> against MDE has been thrown out<\/font><\/a> on summary judgment.<\/p>\n

2) That’s why Flash, MNPooplius, MNMonitor et al haven’t posted anything yet today.<\/p>\n

3) Never go to a blog run by a labor radical from Iowa for insightful legal analysis. Or any legal analysis for that matter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not a lawyer or anything, but…<\/p>\n

(Disclosure:\u00a0 I’ve known Blois Olson for years.\u00a0 I disagree with him, natch – but I harbor absolutely no animus toward him at all.\u00a0 Of course, Brodkorb is a fellow NARN co-host).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blois Olson’s suit against Michael Brodkorb has been tossed on a summary judgement.\u00a0 And the leftybloggers who last year hopped about and screeched like poo-flinging howler monkeys at the notion that their arch-nemesis was getting his comeuppance? As this is written? [crickets] [more crickets] [female crickets] [snarky crickets\u00a0who need new material] [rich crickets with Hungarian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}