Law, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

My Lawsuit

11 Comments

Yes, there has been a ruling, over two years after argument in the appeals court. I’ll have a comment after discussing with counsel.

[Update a few minutes later]

For what it’s worth, here’s Mark Steyn’s take.

[Update a while later]

Here are the official statements from CEI and counsel:

Statement from CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman:

Today’s ruling simply means this case will proceed and the Superior Court will now consider the merits of both sides’ arguments. The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a staunch defender of free speech and open, public debate, and we are confident we’ll prevail on the merits as this case goes back to Court. As a public figure with his own history of harshly attacking those who disagree with him, Michael Mann must now show that CEI’s commentary met some very stringent standards of malice. It did not, and we will continue to fight against those who seek to punish and harass groups and individuals who speak out on controversial issues.

Statement from Andrew Grossman, CEI’s attorney and partner at BakerHostetler:

T​oday’s decision throws out half of Michael Mann’s claims against the Competitive Enterprise Institute and sends the others back to the Superior Court for further consideration. We are confident that Dr. Mann’s remaining claims will ultimately fail, because they attempt to shut down speech and debate that is absolutely protected by the First Amendment. Today’s decision only draws out Dr. Mann’s years-long effort to wage “lawfare” against his opponents instead of engaging in public debate.

So, on we go.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here‘s the story from Buzzfeed, FWIW.

[Noon update]

Thoughts from Jonathan Adler.

[Friday update]

National Review‘s formal response to the ruling.

11 thoughts on “My Lawsuit”

  2. Any word on when discovery will begin?

    BTW, I find it interesting that when I look up the word “trick”, I see the definition: “An act or procedure intended to achieve an end by deceptive or fraudulent means.” Research!

    1. It also gets used in the sense of some process that is surprisingly successful. For example, a mathematician is someone who knows a good math trick. A good mathematician is someone who can apply that math trick in more than one place.

      1. Yeah…. that was in the opinion…. that went against Rand (Simberg).

        Thanks for the information, but I clicked the link and had read it all.

  3. Mr. Simberg’s article does not assemble facts that prove Dr. Mann’s alleged deception and misconduct, but primarily criticizes two entities, Penn State and the National Science Foundation, that investigated those charges and concluded they are unfounded. The target of the article is Dr. Mann; the criticism of these two investigations is a means to that end. Mr. Simberg’s attack on the investigations begins with a mocking reference to Dr. Mann’s “exoneration” by Penn State. It points to the University’s vested financial interest in Dr. Mann and what Mr. Simberg characterizes as the University’s resulting “whitewash” in its investigation of the accusations leveled against Dr. Mann, comparing it to Penn State’s previous investigation in the Sandusky case. The article also refers to the report of the National Science Foundation, and acknowledges that the NSF investigation confirmed Penn State’s conclusion that Dr. Mann had not engaged in misconduct. Mr. Simberg questions the independent corroboration of the NSF report, however, because, as he emphasizes, “more importantly,” the NSF “relied on the integrity of [Penn State] to provide them with all relevant material.” In other words, the NSF investigation and report should not be trusted because they were tainted by reliance on Penn State’s biased and inadequate work.

    In this, Mr. Simberg’s article was inaccurate. As the NSF Report clearly lays out, in addition to “fully review[ing] all the reports and documentation the University provided,” NSF reviewed “a substantial amount of publicly available documentation concerning both [Dr. Mann’s] research and parallel research conducted by his collaborators and other scientists in that particular field of research.” The NSF also independently interviewed Dr. Mann, his “critics, and disciplinary experts.” Moreover, the article was incomplete because it failed to mention two other parallel investigations of the CRU emails, conducted in the United Kingdom, that came to the same conclusion as Penn State and NSF. In short, Mr. Simberg’s assertions that the CRU emails revealed deception and academic and scientific misconduct on the part of Dr. Mann that Penn State covered up and NSF failed to uncover, are not protected as opinion based on accurate, complete facts, because the article gave a skewed and incomplete picture of the facts a reader would need to come to his or her own conclusions on the matter.

    What a crock of excrement. The article was “inaccurate” because it stated “relied on the integrity of Penn State” instead of “relied largely on the integrity of Penn State”. And furthermore, it was “incomplete” because it did not mention the UK-based CRU investigation(s). Therefore it’s not protected free-speech.

    Garbage.

    1. Looks like they changed the headline to, “Court ruling provides new way for climate scientists to fight intimidation”

      Which is rather preposterous considering the one waging a war of intimidation to prevent people from speaking is Mann. In a typical whoosh moment, the author equates people who have different views than him to holocaust deniers.

      The author also makes the absurd claim that the “climate wars” subsided under Obama but in reality sue/settle collaboration between Democrat activist groups and the federal government expanded as well as intimidation campaigns waged by AGW alarmists.

      What the author illustrates is the hypocrisy of the whole situation considering the rhetoric and actions taken by alarmists and how our friends to the left care very little for the first amendment unless it is used to defend burning the American flag or surfing porn in libraries.

  6. I seriously doubt Trump is going to sue scientists like Mann sues other people. Trump also wont be engaging in riots, acts of sabotage, or other nefarious tactics like environmentalists either. Trump isn’t even sworn in yet and we are asked to ignore established patterns of behavior and worry about imaginary things Trump hasn’t done.

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