Palin gets OK to pursue suit against Times
NEW YORK — A defamation lawsuit Sarah Palin brought against The New York Times was restored by a federal appeals court Tuesday, giving the onetime Republican vice presidential nominee an opportunity to prove her claims that the newspaper falsely accused her of inciting a mass shooting that severely wounded a congresswoman.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a lowercourt judge tossed out the lawsuit too quickly without giving her a chance to obtain email records and other evidence that might aid her lawyers.
Still, the decision by a threejudge panel said Palin’s burden of proof is high to prove that the newspaper acted with actual malice when it published an editorial in 2017 headlined “America’s Lethal Politics.”
The Manhattan judges said they took no position on the merits of Palin’s claim but were concerned about the process lowercourt judges follow in evaluating lawsuits.
“Nothing in this opinion should therefore be construed to cast doubt on the First Amendment’s crucial constitutional protections,” the 2nd Circuit said.
Palin sued the Times for unspecified damages after the editorial about gun control was published following the June 2017 shooting of Louisiana U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, also a Republican, on a baseball diamond in Washington.
In the editorial, the Times wrote that before the 2011 shooting of thenarizona U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized crosshairs.
The Times lawyers have said the newspaper revised the online version of the editorial to make clear that the crosshairs on the map appeared over Giffords’ district rather than over her name or image.