Defamation Suit Against Rolling Stone Is Revived by 2nd Circuit Panel
In what it termed "a close call," the Second Circuit allowed a defamation suit over the now-debunked 2014 article that detailed an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity. The panel reversed the majority of the district court's dismissal and remanded the case for further proceedings.
September 19, 2017 at 06:05 PM
4 minute read
In what its majority termed “a close call,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit allowed a defamation suit over the now-debunked 2014 article published by Rolling Stone magazine that detailed an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity. The panel reversed the majority of the district court's dismissal and remanded the case for further proceedings.
“At this stage of the litigation, plaintiffs need only plead sufficient facts to make it plausible—not probable or even reasonably likely—that a reader familiar with each plaintiff would identify him as the subject of the statements at issue,” the opinion in Elias v. Rolling Stone, 16-2465-cv, read.
Additionally, the panel of U.S. Circuit Judges Guido Calabresi and Raymond Lohier Jr., with U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York sitting by designation, reversed Southern District Judge P. Kevin Castel's decision that small group defamation wasn't sufficiently plausible to proceed. Lohier dissented from the majority in part.
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