Stanford prof who sued critics loses appeal against $500,000 in legal fees
Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor who sued a journal and a critic for $10 million before dropping the case, has lost an appeal he filed in 2022 to avoid paying defendants more than $500,000
Stanford prof who sued critics loses appeal against $500,000 in legal fees
Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor who sued a journal and a critic for $10 million before dropping the case, has lost an appeal he filed in 2022 to avoid paying defendants more than $500,000 in legal fees.
As we have previously reported, Jacobson:
…who studies renewable energy at Stanford, sued in September 2017 in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia for defamation over a 2017 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that critiqued a 2015 article he had written in the same journal. He sued PNAS and the first author of the paper, Christopher Clack, an executive at a firm that analyzes renewable energy.
The fees, based on an anti-SLAPP statute, are “designed to provide for early dismissal of meritless lawsuits filed against people for the exercise of First Amendment rights.” Jacobson tried to argue that, by dropping the suit, he was no longer liable for legal fees because the statute requires that defendants “prevail.”
But the three judges in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disagreed. Justice Joshua Deahl, writing on behalf of himself and colleagues, held:
under Jacobson’s preferred approach, a plaintiff could engage in harassing and meritless litigation up until the point at which they sense the court might dismiss the case, and then voluntarily dismiss the suit themselves, all the while keeping the threat of refiling hanging over the defendants’ heads and running up their legal bills.
The specter of repeat litigation by Jacobson is not farfetched. In his briefing to this court, Jacobson continues to take issue with “the refusal of Dr. Clack and NAS to correct the false facts to this day, in reckless disregard for the truth.” Much of his brief rehashes his claims that NAS and Clack defamed him and he persists in condemning Clack’s article. In arguing that NAS and Clack have not “prevailed,” Jacobson repeatedly asserts that he retains the ability to refile his defamation suit, “keeping the defendant[s] at risk.”
Indeed, Jacobson told us in a statement – available here – he is “evaluating whether to appeal the DC decision to the full DC Appellate court”:
It appears the court decided to set a precedent, ensuring that future voluntary dismissals before a ruling in similar-type cases would be subject to the risk of a fee award.
Echoing the judges’ description of his brief as rehashing the original claims, he said:
With this decision, the court is basically saying that a scientist can falsify or publish with reckless disregard for the truth false definitions or data or even lie in a scientific article with the purpose of harming or defaming another individual or group of individuals, but such actions do not fall under D.C. defamation law because the statement is published in a scientific paper rather than in a newspaper or other public forum.
In June 2022, Jacobson prevailed on the California Labor Commissioner to order Stanford to pay his own attorneys’ fees because, he argued, bringing the suit was “necessary for my job,” particularly defending his reputation. Stanford’s appeal of that decision, and arguments against paying for the fee awards in the District of Columbia, will be heard at a trial in May.
Commenting more generally on the suit, the judges wrote:
What animates Jacobson’s $10 million defamation suit is nothing more than his indignation at an article critical of his work. Such criticism comes with the territory of academic debate.
Such lawsuits can, of course, be expensive.
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