Federal Judge Jeffrey T Kuntz ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the BBC can continue, rejecting in part the British broadcaster’s request to dismiss the case. The president’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit stems from the BBC’s aggregation of disparate comments he made before the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection, as rendered in a Panorama documentary titled Trump: A Second Chance.
“In accepting the allegations in the Complaint as true, the Court finds that Trump has plausibly pleaded for damages when Trump alleges that a defamatory documentary released in connection with the election damaged his reputation,” the Trump-appointed Florida district court judge wrote. “It would be difficult for the Court to accept a different framework without completely denying the importance and fragility of political elections. »
The judge highlighted the importance of the documentary’s editing decision, which grouped comments made by Trump almost 55 minutes apart, for which the BBC apologized.
“On its face, the montage can independently establish the plausibility of actual malice,” he wrote. “The BBC is trying to present this montage as an ordinary montage aimed at condensing a seventy-minute speech into twelve seconds. But the Court is not convinced.”
The judge continued: “Editing is often necessary. However, given the temporal disparity between the two statements, the distance itself tends towards a plausible conclusion that the BBC knew or should have known that the segment it was creating would not and could not have been a truthful statement. It was not a matter of cutting edges but of creating something different from what was stated in the speech.”
The judge noted past errors in the channel’s coverage and wrote that “such examples can be taken as evidence of the BBC’s state of mind regarding recklessness in light of the BBC’s inaction in the face of false statements about Trump. Thus, Trump paints a picture which demonstrates that the BBC has a pattern of allowing false statements to be published in its portrayal of Trump.”
The judge also wrote that Trump’s “allegations regarding the BBC’s failure to uphold journalistic standards are more than sufficient to plausibly assert more than mere negligence.”
The BBC issued a statement: “We are surprised by this decision but respect the authority of the Court and note that the case will now move to the next stage. We remain confident in our position and will continue to respond through the appropriate legal process.”
Trump hailed the ruling on Truth Social, calling it a “huge victory.” “We will continue to fight and defeat all those who attempt to deceive the American people!” » Trump said.
Even if the judge determined that Trump had “sufficiently pleaded” that the BBC acted with actual malice, the legal standard for a public figure to win a defamation case, he will actually have to prove that she did so at trial.
The judge also rejected Trump’s claim that the BBC violated Florida’s deceptive and unfair trade practices law.
And the judge determined that the president will have to prove that he suffered “actual harm” from the release of the document, which was not released in Florida.
In late October, a Florida magistrate judge ruled that Trump must appear for a deposition conducted by BBC lawyers by Dec. 11 or face sanctions.
Gn headline
