Climate scientist Michael Mann, who sued Canadian conservative author Mark Steyn for defamation, maintained a narrow victory in court on Tuesday after the seven-figure punitive damages initially ordered were reduced to just a few thousand dollars.
Steyn was originally ordered to pay Mann $1 million in punitive damage charges for an article he wrote for the National Review in 2012 criticizing Mann, though the District of Columbia Superior Court reduced the charges to just $5,000. In January, National Review editors announced that a Washington, D.C. judge also ordered the climate scientist to pay over $500,000 to cover some of the outlet’s legal fees.
The final judgement order on Tuesday granted Steyn’s 2024 request to drastically reduce the punitive damages, which he argued should be “$5,000 or less,” from $1 million to the requested amount of $5,000.
The 13-year legal battle began in 2012, after Steyn criticized Mann and his climate “hockey stick” graph, which showed a rapid increase in global warming, in an article published by the National Review, resulting in Mann suing for defamation. Editor Rich Lowry then wrote a follow-up post for the conservative outlet defending Steyn’s comments, and Mann then chose to also sue the outlet for defamation.
A D.C. Superior Court judge’s 2021 order found that National Review couldn’t be held to “actual malice” from Mann’s suit, while Steyn was eventually found by a jury to have defamed Mann.
A 2012 email from Mann surfaced during the discovery process in the case, in which he said he hoped the lawsuit would “ruin” the conservative outlet, according to the National Review.
In National Review’s article announcing that Mann was ordered to contribute to the outlet’s legal fees, titled “Pay Up, Mr. Mann,” the editors wrote that “Mann’s explicitly stated intention was to use a ‘major lawsuit’ as a vehicle with which to ‘ruin National Review.’”
“The promise of American law is that there will be material consequences for bad behavior, and, after twelve years, there finally have been,” the editors continued. “Mann’s behavior throughout has been appalling. Now, he must pay up.”
Mann and Steyn did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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