Delgado v. Sonnen

Background

Arlene Delgado sued Chael Sonnen and the operators of the Flagrant podcast over statements Sonnen made during a March 7, 2023 episode. Delgado alleged that Sonnen falsely questioned her name, education, employment, and credentials; called her a “phony”; said she had “stalked” him; and stated that she had been banned from Ultimate Fighting Championship venues. She also alleged that the podcast defendants failed to investigate the statements. Her amended complaint included defamation, aiding and abetting defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and tortious interference claims.

Sonnen and the podcast defendants moved to dismiss the amended complaint. Magistrate Judge Jennifer E. Willis recommended granting the motions in part and denying them in part. The recommendation would have allowed most of the defamation allegations to proceed but rejected the allegations concerning Delgado’s purported UFC ban and her purported effort to “set up” Donald Trump. It also recommended dismissing the aiding-and-abetting claim without prejudice, with permission to amend, and dismissing the emotional-distress and tortious-interference claims as duplicative, without permission to amend.

Court’s Analysis

The district court reviewed the portions of the recommendation that the parties challenged and adopted nearly all of it. The court held that the podcast’s tone and surrounding context did not make the challenged statements obviously comedic or nonfactual. It concluded that a reasonable listener could understand statements about Delgado’s credentials and education as factual assertions, and that calling her a “stalker” could convey that she had committed a serious crime.

The court also adopted the finding that Delgado was a limited-purpose public figure. That status requires a public figure to prove actual malice—knowledge that a statement was false or reckless disregard for whether it was false. The court found that Delgado plausibly alleged actual malice as to Sonnen because she had told him she attended Harvard, he had referred to her as “Harvard” during their friendship, and they had previously had an amicable relationship.

The court modified the recommendation concerning the UFC-ban statement. Although the magistrate judge found that being banned could have many explanations, the district court concluded that the statement, read together with Sonnen’s assertion that Delgado had stalked him, could lead a reasonable listener to believe that she was banned because of alleged stalking. The court therefore allowed the defamation claim based on that statement to survive dismissal.

The court agreed that the tortious-interference claim duplicated the defamation claim because the alleged economic harm flowed from the supposed injury to Delgado’s reputation. It also agreed that Delgado had not adequately pleaded aiding and abetting: the allegations showed, at most, that the podcast defendants acted recklessly, not that they actually knew Sonnen’s statements were false. The court clarified that Sonnen could still raise a statute-of-limitations defense in a later responsive pleading because he had not adequately raised that defense in his dismissal motion.

Disposition

Judge Jessica G. L. Clarke adopted the report and recommendation in part and modified it in part. The defendants’ motions to dismiss were granted in part and denied in part. The defamation claims were allowed to proceed as to the statements the court found potentially defamatory, including the statement that Delgado had been banned from UFC venues. The aiding-and-abetting claim was dismissed without prejudice, and Delgado was given permission to amend it. The intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress and tortious-interference claims were dismissed as duplicative, with no permission to amend those claims.