Barstool Sports Founder Dave Portnoy’s Defamation Lawsuit Gets Dismissed
A news organisation won a effectual victory this week after a judge dismissed a defamation causa brought against the publishing and several of its employees by Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.
In Monday’s 21-page decision, Bean Town federal Judge F. Dennis Saylor ruled that Portnoy failed to establish Insider had “malice” against him when it reported on his alleged sexual escapades, the New York Post reported.
In an expose starting inwards 2021, Insider alleged Portnoy meshed in “violent and humiliating” sexcapades with several unnamed offspring women, victims claimed.
But the justice concluded that Insider staff chequered the women’s version of events with photos, texts, societal media, videos, medical reports, police force reports, an Uber receipt, and “statements from at least iii friends who saw or spoke with the women before long after their interactions with [the] plaintiff.”
The “defendants’ independent verification of the women’s accounts so further undercuts an inference of actual malice,” Saylor’s ruling said, Law & Crime, a legal publication, reported. group A complainant typically needs to turn out malice to win inwards such a homage action.
Because Portnoy is a public enter it also becomes harder to shew defamation, and the related exact of intrusion of privacy, in court.
“Every legal expert said it was an uphill battle.” Portnoy said inward a recent Twitter post.
Portnoy also did non find come out the possibleness of appealing Saylor’s ruling.
Malice Claimed
The articles were classified as “hit pieces,” and the Insider staff had “malicious intent” in the “smear campaign,” according to the lawsuit. The stories were also labeled as “clickbait journalism,” which the causa explained as suggesting “actual crook wrongful conduct on Mr. Portnoy’s voice without further explanation.”
Portnoy’s called the women’s claims “an outright fabrication.” Portnoy previously said sex was consensual.
The causa stated that the defendants “improperly and knowingly relied upon colored sources who demanded anonymity, all piece existence inward ownership of infotainment grounds that each source’s story was incredible and unreliable.”
Insider and its staff additionally had a “plan to sensationalize a story inwards tell to aim reader traffic to an internet location where they could so follow solicited to support to [the] … tabloid-like Publication,” the suit of clothes adds.
Among the defendants named inwards the cause were Insider Chief Executive Officer Joseph Henry Blodget, reporters Julia Negro and Melkorka Licea, and editor Nicholas Carlson.
This is non what was said at all. The jurist said the exclude for a celebrity to sue a media outlet is really high. He said your carelessness inward reporting is actually protected. If he allowed this to go away to find we all live it would get showed what a scumbag you are. https://t.co/d0x920oBAS pic.twitter.com/n1UbV5xzdv
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) November 8, 2022
Articles Linked to Penn Entertainment
Portnoy founded Barstool Sports inward 2003. In 2020, Penn National Gaming, now known as Penn Entertainment, paid $163 one thousand thousand for a 36% wager inward Barstool Sports. In August, Penn Entertainment acquired the sports website for $387 million.
The suit of clothes farther claimed the articles were published on a engagement that coincided with Penn National Gaming’s quarterly earnings announcements.
But Saylor said the “fact that defendants published the articles in arrears a paywall, and that they sought-after(a) to increment revenue past publishing the stories, does not throw climb up to an inference of genuine malice.”
When reached for initial commentary inward response to the lawsuit, Insider spokesman Mario Ruiz earliest this yr told Casino.org, “We tie-up in arrears our reporting and will hold the display case vigorously.”
This week, Black, who was named in the lawsuit, inwards a tweet called the judge’s ruling “gratifying.”
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