Palin v. The New York Times Company

Background

Sarah Palin brought a libel claim against The New York Times Company and James Bennet based on a July 14, 2017 editorial that linked Palin’s Crosshairs Map to the Arizona shootings of Representative Gabby Giffords and others. The case was tried for seven days before a judge and jury beginning February 3, 2022.

At the close of the evidence, the defendants moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50 for judgment as a matter of law. The court ruled on February 14, 2022, that Palin had failed to present affirmative evidence supporting the essential element of actual malice. Actual malice in this context required clear and convincing evidence that the defendants knew the challenged statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for their falsity. The jury later returned a verdict for the defendants, and the court entered final judgment for them on both the Rule 50 ruling and the jury’s verdict.

After trial, some jurors told the court’s law clerk that they had seen smartphone notifications reporting the bottom line of the court’s intended Rule 50 ruling while they were deliberating. The jurors also volunteered that this information had not affected their deliberations. The court disclosed the conversation to the parties and the public. It later briefly responded to a Bloomberg reporter’s question about the issue, explaining the relevant court procedure.

Palin’s Requests

Palin’s post-trial motion sought three forms of relief:

- retroactive disqualification of the judge under 28 U.S.C. § 455; - a new trial under Rules 59 and 60; and - reconsideration of the Rule 50 judgment.

She argued that various trial-management decisions, evidentiary rulings, jury-selection procedures, the court’s response to a jury question, the timing of the Rule 50 announcement, and the judge’s brief statement to Bloomberg showed bias or prejudiced her case.

Disqualification

The court denied Palin’s request for retroactive disqualification. It explained that adverse judicial rulings generally do not establish an appearance of bias under Section 455. The alleged bias must ordinarily arise from an outside source rather than from the judge’s rulings or conduct in the case.

The court held that the trial-management complaints were based on rulings or in-court conduct and therefore could not support disqualification. It also concluded that the Bloomberg statement did not address the merits of the case. Instead, the statement explained the Rule 50 procedure and was permitted under the judicial conduct rule concerning public comments. The court found no basis for concluding that an objective, informed observer would reasonably question its impartiality.

New Trial

The court denied Palin’s request for a new trial. It addressed four asserted grounds.

First, the court rejected Palin’s challenge to jury selection. The court had identified the parties and relevant people, asked prospective jurors whether they could be fair and impartial, and dismissed several jurors who said they could not fairly consider Palin’s claim. The court was not required to ask every question proposed by counsel, including questions about the prospective jurors’ news sources. Palin identified no seated juror whom she claimed should have been removed for cause.

Second, the court upheld its evidentiary rulings excluding certain articles and other evidence, including material concerning articles on The Atlantic’s website, the Times’s elimination of its Public Editor position, an article emailed to Bennet in 2011, and Bennet’s brother. The court said the evidence lacked an adequate foundation and raised relevance and unfair-prejudice concerns. It also noted that Palin’s lawyers were offered an opportunity to develop additional foundation for some evidence but did not use that opportunity.

Third, the court rejected Palin’s challenge to its answer to a jury question about whether an inference from Bennet’s testimony could help prove actual malice. The court said the answer accurately explained that such an inference alone could not satisfy Palin’s burden, although it could contribute to the other evidence. The court further concluded that Palin’s lawyers had effectively waived the argument by declining an offer to ask the jury which testimony it had been considering.

Fourth, the court rejected Palin’s argument that the jurors’ smartphone notifications required a new trial. It said Palin had not supported her claim that jurors received additional prejudicial coverage, had abandoned her request to interview jurors, and had not preserved an objection to the court’s Rule 50 procedure. The available information suggested that the jurors followed their instructions to disregard media coverage and focus on the evidence. The court reaffirmed its earlier conclusion that the information did not affect the verdict.

Reconsideration of the Rule 50 Judgment

The court denied reconsideration of its Rule 50 decision. Palin argued that the court had disregarded evidence, drawn inferences against her, improperly accepted Bennet’s testimony, violated the Second Circuit’s prior mandate, and reached conclusions inconsistent with its earlier summary-judgment rulings.

The court rejected those arguments. It said Palin had identified no research considered by Bennet or his team that established the falsity of the editorial’s asserted causal inference, and no testimony or contemporaneous communication showing that anyone involved knew or suspected that the inference had been disproved. In the court’s view, Palin therefore lacked affirmative evidence of actual malice.

The court also explained that the earlier appeal concerned the sufficiency of the allegations in Palin’s complaint, not the evidence developed during discovery and trial. The earlier appeal therefore did not control the later evidentiary analysis. In addition, the court’s earlier summary-judgment rulings were interlocutory and could be changed before final judgment.

Disposition

Judge Jed S. Rakoff denied Palin’s post-trial motion in its entirety. The ruling left in place the final judgment for The New York Times Company and James Bennet. The court emphasized that mistakes in publishing the editorial were not enough to establish libel by a public figure without clear and convincing evidence of actual malice.