February 13, 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 13, 2024
Finnegan is pleased to announce a pro bono victory on behalf of Dr. Michael Mann in a long-running defamation case against Rand Simberg, an adjunct scholar with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), and Mark Steyn, a TV/radio personality who wrote for the National Review. Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn compared Dr. Mann to a convicted child molester, of molesting and torturing data, and of academic and scientific fraud and misconduct. They denied Dr. Mann’s request for a retraction and apology, and taunted Dr. Mann to sue them. Following a four-week jury trial, Dr. Mann secured a judgment of liability for defamation against both Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn and was awarded punitive damages of $1,000 against Simberg and $1,000,000 against Steyn by a District of Columbia Superior Court jury. The verdict followed 12 years of litigation by Dr. Mann and the entire legal team.
Dr. Mann, a member of the National Academy of Sciences is currently a Presidential Distinguished Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Mann and his co-authors, Dr. Raymond Bradley and Dr. Malcolm Hughes, published groundbreaking papers in 1998 and 1999 demonstrating a sharp increase in global temperatures linked to increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Their research reconstructed historical temperatures over the past 1,000 years using natural temperature archives. That temperature reconstruction is represented on a graph shaped like a hockey stick lying on its side with the blade pointing upward. The graph, which came to be known as the “Hockey Stick”, featured prominently by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2001 report on climate change.
Dr. Mann filed his defamation suit in 2012 after Simberg and Steyn published articles asserting that Dr. Mann had falsified his Hockey Stick research, calling him “the Jerry Sandusky of climate science” who “molested and tortured data” and committed “scientific and academic misconduct.”
Under the Supreme Court’s New York Times v. Sullivan standard, Dr. Mann was required to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendants published their writings with “actual malice,” a heavy burden under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The trial team proved that defendants either knew or recklessly disregarded multiple Government and University investigations, in the U.S. and U.K., clearing Dr. Mann of misconduct in the wake of the 2009 Climategate controversy involving stolen emails from a research unit in the United Kingdom. Two of these investigations were key pieces of evidence in the case: one conducted by Pennsylvania State University (where Dr. Mann was a professor for 17 years); and a second by the National Science Foundation, which funded the research.
Dr. Mann’s trial team was led by John Williams, a Washington, D.C. based defamation lawyer, and Pete Fontaine, a Philadelphia-based environmental lawyer. They were assisted by Amorie Hummel of Cozen O’Connor and were joined by Finnegan’s Patrick Coyne who assisted the team pro bono.
According to Mr. Coyne, “This verdict is a victory for Dr. Mann and for all scientists. People who do not like scientific findings because they may indicate that regulation is needed have adopted the aggressive strategy of attacking the scientists who conduct this research. When these attacks involve false, defamatory statements, they harm not only the scientists involved, they also inhibit younger researchers from pursuing important scientific research. This victory for truth is for Dr. Mann and all scientists dedicated to researching critical scientific questions impacting human health and the planet.”
Dr. Mann noted: “I hope this verdict sends a message that falsely attacking climate scientists is not protected speech.”
Contacts:
Erika H. Arner, Managing Partner
erika.arner@finnegan.com
Anand K. Sharma, Chair
anand.sharma@finnegan.com
About Finnegan
Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP is one of the largest IP law firms in the world. From offices in Atlanta, Boston, London, Munich, Palo Alto, Reston, Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo, and Washington, DC, the firm practices European, German, UK, and U.S. IP law. In addition to services related to all aspects of patent, trademark, and copyright law, including counseling, prosecution, licensing, and litigation, Finnegan provides counseling and litigation services in advertising, privacy, and a wide spectrum of additional IP-adjacent commercial matters, including trade secrets, international trade, the Internet, e-commerce, government contracts, antitrust, and unfair competition. For additional information on the firm, please visit www.finnegan.com and follow us on LinkedIn
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