Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit against The New York Times over an editorial linking her to the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords was resumed on Wednesday.
Several “significant issues” in Palin’s unsuccessful 2022 federal trial in Manhattan “call into question the credibility of the ruling,” the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals said.
While the jury was deliberating, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff dismissed the case, finding the news organizations not liable “as a matter of law.”
The ruling “unfairly usurped the jury’s authority to make a credibility determination,” Judge John M. Walker Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said Wednesday.
Judge Rakoff did not inform the jury of his verdict, but Bloomberg reported that several jurors in the case learned through push notifications on their smartphones that the judge who would decide the case had said he would rule in favor of The New York Times.
The Second Circuit said the trial was also marred by improperly excluded evidence and inaccurate jury instructions.
Wednesday’s ruling gives the former Alaska governor and one-time Republican vice presidential nominee a new opportunity to argue before a jury that The New York Times defamed her in a 2017 opinion piece.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals set aside the jury verdict finding The New York Times not liable and also reversed a separate district court decision that dismissed the case. In reversing Judge Rakoff’s ruling, the Second Circuit said there was sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find in Palin’s favor as to whether there was actual malice.
The appeals court remanded the case to a lower court for a new trial.
The “actual malice” standard
Judge Walker wrote that the article in question was published after a gunman opened fire on lawmakers at a baseball stadium, and that there was a “‘connection'” between the shooting and “political incitement. ” The article, he wrote, referenced a digital graphic published by Palin’s political action committee in 2010. The graphic was a map with crosshairs through districts represented by Democrats, including the district of former Arizona Rep. Giffords, who was shot in 2011, the judge wrote.
Palin accused the Times and its former editorial editor, James Bennet, of ignoring the truth in order to present a biased story. The Times and Bennett maintained they made an honest mistake and corrected the story less than a day after it was published.
Rakoff said Palin failed to prove that “Mr. Bennett knew the statements at issue were false or recklessly disregarded the likelihood that they were false” — the “actual malice” standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court for defamation lawsuits brought by public figures like Palin in its landmark 1964 decision, New York Times v. Sullivan.
The standard sets a high bar for public figures to sue news organizations for defamation. Ms. Palin has suggested she viewed the lawsuit as a way to get the nation’s highest court to change the law. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch have said it’s time to reexamine Mr. Sullivan.
Judges Leena Laggi and Richard J. Sullivan joined the opinion.
Palin is represented by Turkel Kuva Barrios, and The Times is represented by the law firm Ballard Spahr.
The case is Palin v. The NY Times Co., 2d Cir., No. 22-00558, 8/28/24.