Anonymous ID: 321c9b Dec. 19, 2018, 11:19 a.m. No.4378297   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8339 >>8470

Well isn`t this interesting…..

CNN Legal Setback Points to Tougher Times Ahead for Media Companies

In a defamation case, the Eleventh Circuit rejects how CNN and other media companies demanded the special-dismissal provision of Georgia's anti-SLAPP statute.

NN may still be enjoying its courtroom victory last month saving White House correspondent Jim Acosta's press pass, but as far as the First Amendment goes, the television news network better be ready to play some defense. That's because on Friday, CNN suffered a bruising loss in an important appeal that will at the very least make it easier to sue the media in federal court in a handful of states including Georgia, where CNN is headquartered.

 

The appeal arises from a series of reports in June 2015 on the infant mortality rate for open-heart surgery at West Palm Beach, Florida-based St. Mary's Medical Center. That series, showcased on Anderson Cooper's show, asserted that St. Mary's "death rate" was three times the national average — prompting defamation lawsuits, including from David Carbone, formerly the chief executive at the hospital until he was forced to resign upon CNN's report. Carbone alleges that CNN made an unfair comparison to hospitals that did both open-heart and closed-heart surgeries, and that a more proper comparison would be adjusted for risk.

 

CNN contends that Carbone can't meet the "of and concerning" standard of a defamation suit because the report didn't mention him by name, and further argues that an academic disagreement about methodology can't support a defamation claim and that its chosen methodology comparing mortality rates constitutes non-actionable opinion.

 

However, the specific arguments for the deficiency of Carbone's claims have taken a back seat to the standard by which a Georgia federal judge had to decide whether the case should move past an initial dismissal motion.

 

Like many states, Georgia has aimed to deter frivolous litigation implicating First Amendment activity by passing an anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) statute. Under this law, a plaintiff like Carbone is limited in pursuing discovery and a defendant like CNN saves the costly burden of defending — and possibly settling — litigation unless the legal claims show a "probability" of prevailing.

 

By federal rules, though, plaintiffs merely need to demonstrate the "plausibility" of a complaint on its face in order to advance in lawsuits.

 

The contrast between probability and plausibility (and rules governing cases in state and federal court) thus amounts to a significantly different evidentiary burden for plaintiffs at the get-go. What happens when because of the diversity of citizenship for the parties, lawsuits raising state-based claims are tried in federal court? Other media companies, fearful of having a tougher time getting out of nuisance lawsuits, supported CNN in amicus briefs arguing that Georgia's anti-SLAPP law should apply. But the benefits of SLAPP deterrence aren't just for media companies. For example, President Donald Trump recently used Texas' anti-SLAPP law to defeat the defamation lawsuit brought by Stormy Daniels, and while Trump has often advocated for looser libel laws, he certainly enjoyed and boasted about the nearly $300,000 in legal fees that Daniels was ordered to pay in the case. Fee-shifting is another common component of state anti-SLAPP laws.

 

On Friday, Eleventh Circuit Judge William Pryor provided an answer to the question of procedure in the Carbone case.

 

Rest here:https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/cnn-legal-setback-points-tougher-times-media-companies-1169938

Anonymous ID: 321c9b Dec. 19, 2018, 11:22 a.m. No.4378339   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8413 >>8470 >>8473

>>4378297

This ties in….

Russians Lose Defamation Suit Over Trump Dossier

WASHINGTON (CN) – Trump dossier author Christopher Steele and a London-based corporate intelligence company won the dismissal Monday of defamation claims from three Russian businessmen.

 

Filed with the D.C. Superior Court in April, the suit by Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan took issue with a two-page portion of the Steele dossier that describes the men’s close ties to the Kremlin and says they gave advice to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

Fridman, Aven and Khan are all investors in Russian bank Alfa Bank and said that their reputations were damaged when Steele and opposition research firm Fusion GPS arranged briefings with reporters and other people, including a man who worked for a private foundation connected to Senator John McCain, R-Ariz.

 

Steele and corporate intelligence company Orbis Business Intelligence asked D.C. Superior Court Judge Anthony Epstein in May to dismiss the lawsuit under Washington D.C.’s anti-SLAPP law, which is meant to deter parties from filing lawsuits to tamp down opposing political speech.

 

In a 24-page opinion filed Monday, Epstein wrote Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence had done enough to show the allegations in the dossier about the businessmen are an issue of public interest in the United States and that the businessmen qualify as “limited-purpose public figures.”

 

“A key part of plaintiffs’ case is that [the dossier] implicitly alleged that plaintiffs aided ‘the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election,’ and plaintiffs cannot contend both that defendants in [the dossier] accused them of cooperation with Russian interference in the election and that these statements did not involve an issue of public interest in the United States,” Epstein wrote.

 

In addition, Epstein wrote the businessmen did not show the allegations against them in the dossier are false, a key part of proving a claim of defamation. Epstein said the businessmen’s claim that Steele left out “supporting facts” from the dossier would at most show negligence, which would not be enough to support a defamation claim.

 

“Because plaintiffs have not offered evidence supporting a clear and convincing inference that defendants made any defamatory statement in [the dossier] with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of its falsity, they have not offered evidence that their claims are likely to succeed on the merits,” Epstein wrote.

 

Alston and Bird attorney Christy Hull Eikhoff serves as lead counsel for Steele in United States and praised Epstein’s decision this afternoon.

Rest here: https://www.courthousenews.com/russians-lose-defamation-suit-over-trump-dossier/

Anonymous ID: 321c9b Dec. 19, 2018, 11:29 a.m. No.4378405   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Flynn will be called as a witness in this case

Ex-Flynn Associate Pleads Not Guilty to Conspiracy

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) – Not far from the courthouse where a federal judge excoriated former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn for having “sold out his country,” a onetime business partner of Flynn pleaded not guilty Tuesday to conspiring against the United States as an illegal agent of Turkey.

 

Wearing a black suit and thick, black-rimmed glasses, 66-year-old Bijan Kian opted to waive a reading of the indictment from U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga, who presided over the hearing in the Alexandria, Virginia, courthouse.

 

“Not guilty,” Kian told the judge quietly, standing beside his defense attorney, Roger Trout.

 

According to the indictment – which was unsealed Monday but dated Dec. 12 – Kian and fellow Flynn associate Ekim Alptekin concealed evidence from U.S. authorities that Turkey and other high-level Turkish officials covertly directed their lobbying efforts in the United States.

 

Their goal was to change the perception of Pennsylvania-based cleric Fethullah Gulen so that Turkish President Recep Erodgan could secure Gulen’s extradition to face charges that he orchestrated an attempted 2016 coup in Turkey.

 

While Kian worked as vice chairman to the Flynn Intel Group consultancy, Alptekin operated the shell company Inovo BV, whose trade group is indirectly controlled by the Turkish government. The indictment says Inovo paid Flynn Intel $600,000, and that 41-year-old Alptekin is still at large in Istanbul.

 

Prosecutors allege Kian and Alptekin provided regular updates about the status of their progress to Turkey, and that Flynn Intel received $530,000 for its work smearing Gulen.

 

A U.S. green card holder who has lived in Pennsylvania since 1999, Gulen denies any involvement in the alleged Erdogan coup.

 

Judge Trenga scheduled Kian’s trial date this morning for Feb. 11 at 9 a.m., telling the government he expects at least two status conferences to be held ahead of trial

 

Rest here: https://www.courthousenews.com/ex-flynn-associate-pleads-not-guilty-to-conspiracy/