Defamation Lawsuits Are on the Rise

There has been a sharp rise in defamation cases in the U.S as the internet spreads messages much further than TV and radio, a trial attorney said.
Neama Rahmani, president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers law firm in California, was reacting to a series of massive libel actions in the two years, including a $787 million award against Fox News, $148 million against Rudy Giuliani and $83 million against Donald Trump.
On August 16, a Georgia jury decided that pro-Trump defamation attorney Lin Wood must pay three of his former law partners a total of $4.5 million for defaming them on social media.
Other recent defamation cases include $1.44 billion awarded against Alex Jones in 2022 and the $15 million Johnny Depp won against Amber Heard and the $2 million she won against him in 2022.
Rahmani told Newsweek that the U.S. has seen “many more eight- and nine-figure defamation verdicts and settlements recently.”
“Depp’s trial got a lot of attention, as did Trump, Giuliani, Alex Jones, Mike Lindell and Fox News cases,” he said. “There are several reasons for this. Defendants have more platforms to make potential defamatory statements because of social and alternative media like podcasts. They no longer have to rely on television and radio.
“And plaintiffs have been more litigious in filing and trying defamation cases. Because of the large platform that some of the defendants have, their defamatory statement can reach millions of people and cause significant harm.”
Rahmani said he doesn’t see the rise in such cases as a weakening of the First Amendment.
“The First Amendment isn’t absolute, and it generally protects individuals from government action,” he said. “It doesn’t allow people to maliciously spread misinformation. If they do, they may have to pay compensatory and punitive damages.”
A report in the American Bar Association Journal in October 2023 noted the rise in defamation cases, especially in politics.
“Media law experts say they are seeing several developing trends in libel and defamation cases,” the report said. “Those trends include forum shopping, having an increasingly political component, adding allegations unrelated to the defamation claim, increasingly naming individual reporters as defendants and demanding huge damage awards.”
Depp was awarded the $15 million against Heard for an op-ed article she wrote in the Washington Post, and she won $2 million in a countersuit.
Also in 2022, two juries awarded a total of $1.44 billion to the victims of the Sandy Hook mass shooting after conspiracy theorist Jones falsely claimed that the tragedy was a hoax and that the grieving parents were “crisis actors.”
In April 2023, Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit by Dominion U.S. for $787 million after Fox falsely claimed that Dominion’s voting machines were rigged in Joe Biden’s favor in the 2020 presidential election.
In May 2023, a New York jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll $5 million in a sexual assault and defamation case against Trump. A second jury awarded her an additional $83.3 million defamation award in January 2024 for Trump’s continued attacks on her character.
Also in January, a Washington jury awarded a Georgia mother and daughter $148 million after Giuliani falsely accused them of rigging the 2020 election in Georgia in Biden’s favor.