The real costs of Devin's defamation lawsuit

[struggle4progress]

By Tony Biasotti
APRIL 12, 2019

... Just because the new lawsuit might be laughed out of court doesn’t make it a laughing matter for McClatchy or Nunes’s other targets. Fighting a defamation suit, however baseless, against a prominent, deep-pocketed plaintiff like a congressman can burn up plenty of time, attention, and money ...

... Last year, the Bee published a story about a San Francisco Bay cruise in 2015 on the SS Alpha Omega, a yacht owned by a nonprofit affiliate of Alpha Omega Winery, of which Nunes is a part owner.

According to a lawsuit filed by a winery employee who was on the cruise, the 25 men on board drank to excess, snorted cocaine openly, and paid to have sex with women, some of whom appeared to be underage. The winery settled the suit out of court. Nunes was not on the yacht or named in the lawsuit.

The Bee’s story about the cruise is the nexus of Nunes’s lawsuit. The suit claims the story was part of “McClatchy’s scheme to defame Nunes and injure his reputation,” by “implying that he was involved with cocaine and underage prostitutes” ...

https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/mcclatchy-fresno-bee-devin-nunes.php

[PeeJ52]

1. Interesting theory for Nunes' lawsuit. If he wins, I'd say Obama has a good case to sue...

all the news sources that have prominently led off their stories about Greg Craig being indicted and Obama's top White House counsel, because those headlines make the story "imply" that the crime was committed while he was working under Obama and not while he was under contract for work with Manafort.

[Sinistrous]

2. Nunes with his lawsuits reminds me of

a trash fish flopping futily on a dock with nobody giving a damn.

[marble falls]

3. His hiccuping of lawsuits will be seen as what it is: nuisance suits for the purpose of dampening ..

free speech and a free press. His object is to keep his conduct under the radar and in the dark.

He will be paying for a lot of other people's lawyers.

[PeeJ52]

4. He won't. He's probably got some big money Republican bankrolling him...

I imagine the legal fees will be quite high. I wonder if the "loan" originator will ever be discovered.

[csziggy]

5. Nunes himself is not "deep pockets" though he may be backed by wealthy donors

Devin Nunes

Rank: 367th in the House

with an estimated net worth of $158,001 in 2015.

TOP INDUSTRIES INVESTED 2015
Beer, Wine & Liquor $150,000
Commercial Banks $8,000

TOP ASSETS 2015
Alpha Omega Winery $75,000
Phase 2 Cellars $75,000
https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances/net-worth?cid=N00007248

Of course, since this was released his net worth may have shot up - and I wonder where additional assets may have come from?

I also wonder who is paying his legal fees?

[DBoon]

6. Wealthy individuals can invest in lawsuits

without the source of funding being obvious

Peter Thiel invested in lawsuits against Gawker which intended to destroy that news outlet, and succeeded:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/hogan-thiel-gawker-trial/554132/

quote:

Thiel ponders revenge for years. Then, as you report, in April 2011, he is in Berlin and he takes a dinner meeting with a then-26-year-old Thiel devotee, who you call Mr. A. This young man essentially tells Thiel, I know you’re obsessed with Gawker, and I have an idea to destroy them. He says Thiel should create a shell company to fund investigators and lawyers to find causes of action against Gawker and ultimately sue it into oblivion. He estimates that the plan will take up to five years and up to $10 million in funding, which is prophetic.

[Retrograde]

7. It worked for Devin's pal Trump

Threaten everyone who says anything negative (i.e., anything true) about you with a massive lawsuit: most people will back out - especially those without much in the way of funds. In the long run, you'll condition people to be afraid of fighting back unless they have deep pockets themselves.

It's telling that in the very few cases where the Trump offense didn't work he lost the lawsuit.