Grayson's attorneys filed a notice of appeal last week at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after U.S. District Judge Paul Byron ruled against him May 20. As is common, the notice does not detail arguments Grayson will make in the appeal.

Grayson, a Democrat, filed the lawsuit in 2020 against the political-action committees Progress Tomorrow, Inc. and United Together Inc., the non-profit group No Labels, Inc., No Labels founder Nancy Jacobson and her husband, Mark Penn.

It stemmed from ads that Progress Together published during Grayson's unsuccessful primary race in 2018 against U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., in Congressional District 9. The lawsuit alleged that the other groups, Jacobson and Penn worked through Progress Together.

The ads raised ethical questions about Grayson's work as a hedge-fund manager while he was in Congress and allegations that he had abused his ex-wife. As an example, mailers about the ethics issue depicted Grayson lounging on the beach in the Cayman Islands with a cocktail and striding toward a jet bound for the Cayman Islands with stacks of cash, according to Byron's ruling.

Grayson's lawsuit alleged that the "vitriolic, hateful, false and maliciously defamatory statements published about him by the defendants (acting through Progress Tomorrow) leading up to Grayson's 2018 congressional campaign crossed the line of acceptable discourse, even by the standards of modern political debate, and exceeded all bounds of decency, all with the intent to ruin Grayson."

"The defendants published repeated statements which they knew were false, or were published with reckless regard to truthfulness, and they damaged Grayson personally, professionally and ultimately politically," the lawsuit said. "The defendants thereby enriched themselves, under their 'inside the Beltway' business model of promoting their ugly brand of malicious defamation to rich donors."

But Byron, in an 18-page ruling, granted summary judgment to the defendants. In part, he pointed to an Office of Congressional Ethics investigation into the hedge-fund issue and reporting by news organizations such as Politico and The New York Times.

"Defendants correctly contend that their reasonable reliance on previously published reports from these independent, reputable sources for all their advertisements, as well as their citation to some of these sources in the mailers, rebuts the presence of actual malice," Byron wrote.

The Orlando-based federal judge also wrote that "even viewing the record in the light most favorable to plaintiff, there is not even a scintilla of evidence showing — much less clear and convincing proof of — actual malice."

Grayson served in Congress in 2009 and 2010 and from 2013 through 2016. He unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in 2016 before trying to win back a congressional seat in 2018. Soto received 66.4 percent of the vote in defeating Grayson in the primary.

Byron's ruling said the Progress Together and United Together committees are now defunct.