Climate Scientist’s Defamation Claims Survive In Part

An opinion issued by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals

These appeals present us with legal issues of first impression concerning the special motion to dismiss created by the District of Columbia’s Anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (Anti-SLAPP) Act, D.C. Code §§ 16-5501 to -5505 (2012 Repl.): whether denial of a special motion to dismiss is immediately appealable and the standard applicable in considering the merits of an Anti-SLAPP special motion to dismiss. Appellee Michael E. Mann is a well-known climate scientist whose research in studying the “paleoclimate,” or ancient climate, has featured prominently in the politically charged debate about climate change. Dr. Mann filed an action for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress against Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), Rand Simberg, National Review, Inc. (National Review), and Mark Steyn based on articles written by Mr. Simberg, Mr. Steyn, and National Review’s editor Rich Lowry that appeared on the websites of CEI and National Review. Dr. Mann’s complaint claimed that the articles which criticized Dr. Mann’s conclusions about global warming and accused him of deception and academic and scientific misconduct contained false statements that injured his  reputation and standing in the scientific and academic communities of which he is a part. Defendants argued that Dr. Mann’s lawsuit infringes on their First Amendment right of free speech and moved for dismissal under the Anti-SLAPP Act and, alternatively, under Superior Court Rule 12 (b)(6). The trial court ruled that Dr. Mann’s claims were “likely to succeed on the merits” — the standard established in the Anti-SLAPP Act to defeat a motion to dismiss — and denied appellants’ motions to dismiss and their subsequent motions to reconsider. Appellants — CEI, National Review and Mr. Simberg — sought interlocutory review in this court of the trial court’s denial of their motions to dismiss.

As a preliminary matter, we hold that we have jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine to hear appellants’ interlocutory appeals of the trial court’s denial of their special motions to dismiss filed under the Anti-SLAPP Act. We further hold that the Anti-SLAPP Act’s “likely to succeed” standard for overcoming a properly filed special motion to dismiss requires that the plaintiff present evidence — not simply allegations — and that the evidence must be legally sufficient to permit a jury properly instructed on the applicable constitutional standards to reasonably find in the plaintiff’s favor.

Having conducted an independent review of the evidence to ensure that it surmounts the constitutionally required threshold, we conclude that Dr. Mann has presented evidence sufficient to defeat the special motions to dismiss as to some of his claims. Accordingly, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings. 

Plaintiff is a Penn State professor and played a leading role in the science of climate change.

He is a Distinguished Professor of Meteorology and the Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State).  Dr. Mann is considered an authority on climate change science, and has been recognized with honors and awards for his work identifying global warming and its cause.

He co-authored an article that became a centerpiece of the global warming debate

Because of its shape resembling the long shaft and shorter diagonal blade of a hockey stick, this graph became known as the “hockey stick.”

…The hockey stick graph also became a rallying point, and a target, in the subsequent debate over the existence and cause of global warming and what, if anything, should be done about it.

The controversy

In November 2009, thousands of emails from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom — some between Dr. Mann and CRU climate scientists — were somehow obtained and anonymously published on the Internet, shortly before the U.N. Global Climate Change Conference was to begin in Copenhagen in December 2009. In a controversy dubbed “Climategate,” some of these emails were cited as proof that climate scientists, including Dr. Mann, falsified or manipulated their data, in collusion with government officials, to produce the hockey stick result. The emails led to public questioning of the validity of the research leading to the hockey stick graph and to calls for evaluation of the soundness of its statistical analysis and the conduct of the scientists involved in the research, including, specifically, Dr. Mann.

Following disclosure of the emails and the questions raised, Penn State, the University of East Anglia, and five governmental agencies — the U.K. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, the U.K. Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. National Science Foundation — issued reports after conducting inquiries into the validity of the methodology and research underlying the hockey stick graph and investigating the allegations impugning the integrity of Dr. Mann’s and other climate scientists’ conduct. The inquiries that considered the science largely validated the methodology underlying the hockey stick graph. None of the investigations found any evidence of fraud, falsification, manipulation, or misconduct on the part of Dr. Mann.  These reports were published in 2010 and 2011. 

On July 13, 2012, Mr. Simberg authored an article entitled “The Other Scandal in Unhappy Valley,” which was published on OpenMarket.org, an online blog of CEI. Comparing “Climategate” with the then-front-page news of the Penn State sexual abuse scandal involving Jerry Sandusky that had been revealed in the Freeh Report…

On July 15, 2012, Mr. Steyn authored an article titled “Football and Hockey,” which appeared on National Review’s online blog “The Corner.”

Both articles drew an analogy between the work of Dr. Mann and the tribulations of Coach Joe Paterno.

The [Simberg] article’s focus is on Dr. Mann personally, alleging that he has engaged in “wrongdoing,” “deceptions,” “data manipulation,” and “academic and scientific misconduct.” The article calls Dr. Mann “the Jerry Sandusky of climate science,” comparing Dr. Mann’s “molest[ing] and tortur[ing] data in the service of politicized science” to Sandusky’s “molesting children.” The article also describes Dr. Mann as being, “like Joe Paterno,” a “rock star” at Penn State, who attracted millions of dollars to the University, and, like Bernie Madoff “at the height of his financial career,” “a sacred funding cash cow.”

…Even allowing for the use of hyperbole in the public discussion about global warming, we conclude that the statements in Mr. Simberg’s article that Dr. Mann acted dishonestly, engaged in misconduct, and compared him to notorious persons, are capable of conveying a defamatory meaning with the requisite constitutional certainty and included statements of fact that can be proven to be true or false…

As with Mr. Simberg’s article, Mr. Steyn’s is not about the merits of the science of global warming, but about Dr. Mann’s “deceptions” and “wrongdoing.” Like Mr. Simberg, Mr. Steyn compares Dr. Mann’s alleged wrongdoing — “molesting” and “torturing” data to achieve a deceptive but desired result that will court funding for Penn State — to that of Sandusky, which suggests that their characters are similarly base. (“Whether or not he’s ‘the Jerry Sandusky of climate change,’ he remains the Michael Mann of climate change.”) The accusation is bolstered by referring to the University’s investigation as a “cover-up” of Dr. Mann’s “wrongdoing” in order to protect someone who was a “star name” at Penn State like Sandusky and Paterno.

Rich Lowry can see starbursts in his dismissal from the litigation

Mr. Lowry does not repeat Mr. Steyn’s statements except to say that Mr. Steyn referred to the hockey stick graph as “fraudulent.” The editorial does not disavow Mr. Steyn’s use of the word “fraudulent” but puts a gloss on it, explaining that “[i]n common polemical usage, ‘fraudulent’ doesn’t mean honest-to-goodness criminal fraud. It means intellectually bogus and wrong.” In sum, Mr. Lowry’s editorial does not repeat or endorse the factual assertions that Dr. Mann engaged in deception and misconduct that we have found to be actionable in Mr. Simberg’s and Mr. Steyn’s articles.

Holding

Appellants contend that the trial court erred in denying their special motions to dismiss because Dr. Mann did not sufficiently substantiate his defamation claim on the first three elements. As to Mr. Lowry’s editorial, we agree; but as to some of the other statements on which Dr. Mann bases his complaint, we disagree. We conclude that Dr. Mann hurdled the Anti-SLAPP statute’s threshold showing of likelihood of success on the merits because the evidence he has presented is legally sufficient to support findings by the fact-finder that statements in Mr. Simberg’s and Mr. Steyn’s articles were defamatory, were published by appellants to a third party without privilege, and were made with actual malice…

Tarnishing the personal integrity and reputation of a scientist important to one side may be a tactic to gain advantage in a no-holds-barred debate over global warming. That the challenged statements were made as part of such debate provides important context and requires careful parsing in light of constitutional standards. But if the statements assert or imply false facts that defame the individual, they do not find shelter under the First Amendment simply because they are embedded in a larger policy debate.

We apply these principles to the statements in the articles cited in the complaint, in the order in which they appeared. The articles, as they appeared on CEI and National Review’s websites, are appended to this opinion…

Dr. Mann has supplied sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that statements in the articles written by Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn were false, defamatory, and published by appellants to third parties, and, by clear and convincing evidence, that appellants did so with actual malice. We, therefore, affirm the trial court’s denial of the special motions to dismiss the defamation claims based on those articles and remand the case for additional proceedings in the trial court with respect to these claims. Id. We reverse the trial court’s denial of the special motions to dismiss with respect to Dr. Mann’s defamation claims based on Mr. Lowry’s editorial and the claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. On remand, the court shall dismiss these claims with prejudice. Id. § 16-5502 (d).

The court ‘s opinion was authored by Senior Judge Ruiz joined by Associate Judges Beckwith and Easterly.  (Mike Frisch)