Solomon: Here’s What You Need to Know About Sarah Palin’s Upcoming Court Battle With the NYT

In what could be the battle royale of modern-day defamation cases, jury selection begins this week in Sarah Palin’s suit against The New York Times.

With the trial set to begin on Feb. 1, Palin and her lawyers will argue that the Times blamed her for a 2011 shooting at a political event in Tucson, Arizona, that severely wounded Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

In the Times editorial at issue, a Palin PAC was not only linked to political violence in general, but readers were also led to believe that one of its ads was linked to the Giffords shooting. The day after publication, the piece was corrected to state that there was no link between Palin or her PAC and the shooting, but the libelous statement was already out there.

It’s important to remember that the bar for defamation is set significantly higher for public figures such as Palin.

The former vice presidential candidate is technically accusing the Times of libel, which is the written form of defamation. What the court is going to look at, once it gets through what may be a challenging jury selection given how polarizing both Palin and The New York Times are for some, is the long-standing balance between the conflicting rights of both parties to a libel suit.

This goes way back to 1964, to another case involving the Times.

New York Times v. Sullivan is the case today’s Times will hope protects it. The Supreme Court in Sullivan established a principle that stands today — that the First Amendment should protect words used against a public official that might otherwise be libel so that we can all have strong debate about public affairs and our government.

Michael Epstein, a New Jersey lawyer, reminds us that in setting the law of the land for defamation, the court balances competing interests:

“The Supreme Court is always trying to find the balance between protecting public figures from being defamed, while allowing necessary debate about government and politics. This often depends upon the situation and actors, as the Court will look at the context in a defamation claim involving a public figure.”

Palin’s lawsuit was originally thrown out at the trial court level, but in 2019, the Second Circuit heard her appeal and sided with her. In an interesting twist, after the Second Circuit kicked the case back to the trial court, the original trial judge denied the Times’ motion for summary judgment, allowing the case to move forward.