Attorneys for Rolling Stone magazine, Sabrina Rubin Erdely and Wenner Media, Inc. filed a motion for judgment Monday, asking a federal judge to overrule a jury’s recent decision that found the magazine, writer and publisher liable for defaming former Associate Dean Nicole Eramo.
A federal jury previously awarded Eramo $3 million in damages as a result of her claims that she was defamed and falsely depicted as indifferent towards sexual assault survivors in the now debunked article “A Rape On Campus.”
The article was published in November 2014, but was ultimately retracted in April of the following year after a Charlottesville Police investigation found no evidence of the brutal gang rape described in the article and the Columbia Journalism Review issued a scathing report on the article.
The jury had found Rolling Stone liable for defamation by “republishing” the article on Dec. 5, 2014, with an editor’s note and that Erdely had acted with actual malice through parts of the article itself, as well as in post-publication interviews.
The note by then-Managing Editor Will Dana acknowledged “discrepancies in Jackie's account.”
Rolling Stone’s lawyers claim there is no evidence that the addition of the editor’s note to the article “affirmatively reiterated the content of any allegedly false and defamatory statements with an intent to reach a new audience” — the legal standard of republication.
“In the end, the jury verdict acts as a million-dollar penalty against a publisher that sought to promptly put readers on notice of serious concerns with an article and, as such, violates basic public policy,” Rolling Stone’s lawyers stated in court documents.
Regarding Erdely, Rolling Stone’s lawyers argue Eramo did not have sufficient evidence to prove Erdely acted with actual malice.
“[Eramo] failed to meet her burden of producing clear and convincing evidence that Erdely published any of the challenged statements with actual malice,” Rolling Stone’s lawyers stated.
Libby Locke, one of Eramo’s attorneys, criticized the latest motion in a statement.
“Rolling Stone baldly told the jury that they heard and respected the verdict in this case. But that was obviously a lie,” she said. “The very first thing that Rolling Stone filed after saying those words is a request to set the verdict aside. This is more evidence that Rolling Stone still doesn’t get it.”
An attorney for Rolling Stone did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday evening.
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