{"id":1529336,"date":"2022-06-27T12:34:02","date_gmt":"2022-06-27T16:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1529336"},"modified":"2022-06-27T12:34:11","modified_gmt":"2022-06-27T16:34:11","slug":"supreme-court-rejects-case-challenging-actual-malice-defamation-standard-thomas-dissents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/supreme-court-rejects-case-challenging-actual-malice-defamation-standard-thomas-dissents\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Rejects Case Challenging \u2018Actual Malice\u2019 Defamation Standard; Thomas Dissents"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsupreme-court-rejects-case-challenging-actual-malice-defamation-standard-thomas-dissents%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1529336&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>After the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/supreme-court\">Supreme Court<\/a> refused to hear a case from a Christian non-profit that sued the hard-left <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/southern-poverty-law-center-splc\">Southern Poverty Law Center<\/a> (SPLC) for defamation, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/s3.documentcloud.org\/documents\/22069543\/thomascoralopn062722.pdf\">blistering dissent<\/a>, stating that he wanted to reconsider the \u201cactual malice\u201d standard for libel protecting the \u201c<em>New York Times<\/em> and its progeny.\u201d Thomas was referencing the case <em>New York Times Co. v. Sullivan<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court denied a writ of certiorari to Coral Ridge Ministries Media, which had applied to receive donations through AmazonSmile in 2017, but was then told it was ineligible because the SPLC had designated Coral Ridge a \u201chate group,\u201d prompting Coral Ridge to sue for defamation.<\/p>\n<p>The SPLC said Coral Ridge was a \u201chate group\u201d because of its Biblical views concerning human sexuality and marriage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCoral Ridge maintained that although it \u2018opposes homosexual conduct\u2019 based on its religious beliefs, it is in no sense a \u2018hate group,\u201d Thomas noted, then quoted from Coral Ridge\u2019s claims: \u201cTo the contrary, it \u2018has nothing but love for people who engage in homosexual conduct\u2019 and \u2018has never attacked or maligned anyone on the basis of engaging in homosexual conduct.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCoral Ridge alleged that SPLC was aware that it was not a \u2018hate group,\u2019 but falsely labeled it one anyway to \u2018destroy the Ministry\u2019 by \u2018dissuading people and organizations from donating to [it].\u2019\u201d Thomas continued. \u201cSPLC responded that its \u2018hate group\u2019 designation was protected by the First Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The District Court dismissed Coral Ridge\u2019s complaint for failure to state a claim, asserting that as a \u201cpublic figure,\u201d Coral Ridge had to prove three elements to rebut SPLC\u2019s First Amendment defense: the \u201chate group\u201d claim had to be (1) provably false, (2) actually false, and (3) made with \u201cactual malice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas continued:<\/p>\n<p><em>The court concluded that SPLC\u2019s \u201chate group\u201d designation was not provably false because \u201chate group\u2019 has a highly debatable and ambiguous meaning. Additionally, the court held that Coral Ridge had not plausibly alleged that SPLC acted with \u201cactual malice,\u201d as defined by this Court\u2019s decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Then the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision but based its own decision exclusively on the \u201cactual malice\u201d standard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA \u2018public figure\u2019 laboring under the \u2018actual malice\u2019 standard must prove that a defamatory statement was made \u2018with knowledge that it was false or with reckless dis regard of whether it was false or not,\u2019\u201d Thomas explained. \u201cCoral Ridge now asks us to reconsider the \u2018actual malice\u2019 standard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added bluntly, \u201cAs I have said previously, \u2018we should.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would grant certiorari in this case to revisit the \u2018actual malice\u2019 standard,\u201d Thomas declared. \u201cThis case is one of many showing how <em>New York Times<\/em> and its progeny have allowed media organizations and interest groups \u2018to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He concluded:<\/p>\n<p><em>SPLC\u2019s \u201chate group\u201d designation lumped Coral Ridge\u2019s Christian ministry with groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis. It placed Coral Ridge on an interactive, online \u201cHate Map\u201d and caused Coral Ridge concrete financial injury by excluding it from the AmazonSmile donation program. Nonetheless, unable to satisfy the \u201calmost impossible\u201d actual-malice standard this Court has imposed, Coral Ridge could not hold SPLC to account for what it maintains is a blatant falsehood.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Because the Court should not \u201cinsulate those who perpetrate lies from traditional remedies like libel suits\u201d unless \u201cthe First Amendment requires\u201d us to do so, I respectfully dissent from the denial of certiorari.<\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the Supreme Court refused to hear a case from a Christian non-profit that sued the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for defamation, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a blistering dissent, stating that he wanted to reconsider the \u201cactual malice\u201d standard for libel protecting the \u201cNew York Times and its progeny.\u201d Thomas was referencing the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":1529395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1529336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1529336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1529395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1529336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1529336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1529336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}