SPLC Faces Wave of Potential Lawsuits After Legal Defeat
After a massive multi million dollar settlement by the SPLC to Maajid Nawaz over a demand letter, not even an actual lawsuit, over 60 groups are discussing bringing about defamation cases against the SPLC.To discuss how this happened and why and if the SPLC is really at risk I joined Lawyer Will Chamberlain to discuss legal issues surrounding defamation and why the SPLC caved to such high demands.Will's Twitter - https://twitter.com/willchamberlainSUPPORT JOURNALISM. Become a patron athttp://www.patreon.com/TimcastSupport the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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The Southern Poverty Law Center agreed to settle with Majid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation just a couple days ago.
If you follow my channel, you've heard this.
What's really remarkable about this case is that it was a multi-million dollar settlement that was never even a lawsuit.
It was essentially a demand letter.
So a lot of people have been questioning why the SPLC would pay out so much money, apologize, issue a video apology to an organization that never actually even sued them in the first place.
It seems like after this, people smelled blood in the water because now we're hearing that 60 more organizations are aiming to sue the Southern Poverty Law Center.
I had to wonder why exactly they would cave so quickly and for so much money.
Now, I don't know.
I'm not a lawyer.
So today, I'm bringing in Will Chamberlain, who is a lawyer, and we're gonna have a conversation about the legal ramifications for the Southern Poverty Law Center after the settlement.
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First, let's look at this story from the Independent Journalism Review.
Southern Poverty Law Center has been labeling Christian groups extremist.
Now they're fighting back.
They say that the Southern Poverty Law Center could soon be slapped with at least 60 lawsuits
from organizations that the watchdog has labeled hate groups and extremist.
Matt Staver, chairman of the Conservative Liberty Council, said in a statement to PJ
Media that he believes a number of organizations are considering legal action against the SPLC.
There are probably about 60 organizations that we're talking to.
That's at least 60, Staver explained.
The allegations that were at issue here were very similar to the allegations against the other groups, Staver continued.
The Southern Poverty Law Center promotes false propaganda, demonizes and labels groups they disagree with, and that labeling has economic as well as physical consequences.
So basically, the Southern Poverty Law Center wasn't even sued, and they just gave several million dollars to Majid Nawaz and the Quilliam Foundation.
And honestly, I have no idea why, but I think, Will, you might have an idea.
So first, let me just ask you, why do you think they... I mean, it took two years, but why do you think they're giving all this money away and they weren't even sued?
The SPLC is a repeat player, a potential repeat player when it comes to defamation litigation.
As you saw, there's articles about 60 different potential groups suing the SPLC for defamation
on the basis of being added to one of their lists as an extremist.
Because of that, the SPLC is in a position where if it loses one case badly and some
bad law comes out of a judicial decision, that could impact a whole slew of different
cases.
So, my suspicion is that the SPLC thought that the case, Majid Nawaz's case, was really
That he has a really good case and that the facts are particularly good for him.
That the optics of the case, where a Muslim is somebody that they have critiqued as an anti-Muslim extremist, that's a bad case for them.
And so, there's a sensitive legal question at issue, which is whether or not what the SPL is doing is actually defamatory, is actually actionable.
Because statements of opinion, pure statements of opinion, are not actionable in defamation.
It has to be proven false.
In this case, the SPLC called Majid Awaz an anti-Muslim extremist.
That's really close.
It's on the line.
You could argue that that's just an opinion.
That's an opinion about his bigotry or supposed bigotry.
In this case, I obviously think it's clear that it's a ridiculous accusation.
But you could also make an argument, and I think Majid's lawyers certainly would, that it implies certain underlying facts about Majid's own beliefs.
If that went to a judge, The judge, given how obscene this statement was that the STLC made, might rule in favor of Majid and, in the course of doing so, create law.
That is very unfavorable to the SPLC in terms of the lists that it's putting out.
So I want to go to this story from Popat real quick, though, because it says, the Southern Poverty Law Center surrenders unconditionally to Majid Nawaz.
We should be concerned.
And basically what they say is, what the Southern Poverty Law Center said in their article was an opinion, not a statement of fact.
And not just that, they backed up their opinion with numerous sources.
So, they could be wrong in their interpretation of what they're looking at, but it sounds like opinion.
They talked about how Majid Nawaz advocated a policy that would ban the wearing of veils in some public places, and that he provided a list to British law enforcement of Islamic organizations.
So basically, the Popat article is saying, look, this is an opinion and we shouldn't be happy that they've surrendered in this way because opinion needs to be protected under the First Amendment.
We should be suspicious about this argument because Popat has not been paid to do legal work on this case.
And I'm certain the SPLC has paid lawyers to do legal research and examine it.
And if they thought that their statement was so rock solid as an opinion, There's no reason they wouldn't have tried to say, go ahead, file your lawsuit.
We'll just get it dismissed.
This is obviously opinion and it'll get thrown out at the first instance before you get any discovery before anything else happens.
I think that, um, cause again, it's not, you know, we should be afraid if a judge, if there's actual case law, because case law has precedent.
I don't have to see a reason why as a society we should be afraid of one litigants decision to settle a case Right, right.
That's another thing that shocked me.
I mean, by all accounts, it seems like the SPLC has a ton of money.
persuasive on that point. And I think it shows that his legal analysis is probably a little
Right, right. That's another thing that shocked me. I mean, by all accounts, it seems like
the SPLC has a ton of money. You know, but I guess one of the other things, too, is assuming
— well, actually, let me go back.
I think you hit the nail on the head with the hammer when you said that the SPLC hired lawyers who probably reviewed the case and said, yeah, this is bad.
Let's just settle and be done with it.
And, you know, honestly, like I said, I'm not a lawyer, but when you explain how they might get bad case law that could create a, you know, a wave of new lawsuits like we might actually see, that makes sense.
But I'm also wondering if You know, it never actually went to lawsuit.
It was just a demand letter.
And I know we had talked in the past about issues of discovery.
I'm wondering if you think there's any possibility that the Southern Poverty Law Center is worried about information that may come to light in the public if they do go to court over this, right?
Um, especially if they were worried about losing a motion to dismiss.
Like, if their lawyers had said, there's a high risk that this goes to Discovery because he has a viable claim and you are... So, real quick, what's Discovery?
So, Discovery is the process where the litigants to a dispute are allowed to get information, essentially, from the other parties and from third parties.
Emails, recorded phone calls, documents, everything.
Depositions.
Interviews of various agents of the SPLC and others under oath where they're forced to tell the truth or under penalty of perjury.
And the scope of discovery in America is extremely broad.
Uh, it's not just that your questions or your requests have to be targeted, um, have to actually get evidence.
They just have to be, I forget the exact phrase it's, it's leaving me now, but reasonably, you know, reasonably designed to actually get, get evidence.
You know, essentially, or lead to the eventual evidence being discovered.
We have this article saying that essentially they smell... these other organizations, they smell blood in the water.
They see the SPLC is weak.
They've just paid millions of dollars over a demand ladder.
Now we can sue.
But actually that may have... from what it sounds like you're saying, it may have been on purpose that So I'm not certain that the blood is fully in the water here, right?
battle with Manchindawas, they might lose, they would probably much prefer to get to
a battle with one of these religious groups that they can probably win against and then
Well, would, would they be able to, would any other organization be able to bring up the fact that they've settled with Majid Nawaz as like a point in their favor?
Again, it's a way for the SPLC to just keep this out of court, to keep this particular dispute out of court, and they're paying a lot for the privilege.
I saw this story that said all these organizations are contemplating suing the SPLC now that they've kind of shown their belly, but it sounds like, from our conversation, that might just be a lot of hot air, and the SPLC might not actually... It may be that the SPLC is the one putting bait blood in the water on purpose.
If we litigate this case, we risk a very bad Ruling denying our motion to dismiss that would impact I've got to just go back to then then it's sort of I mean, you know, that's that's what you your opinion on the matter But isn't it still kind of a mystery as to why they pay out so much and back away?
Yeah Is it is it that magic just has too much, you know force behind him?
I think this is the kind of number that was necessary to get Majid to not want to sue Because from his perspective Wow, like why wouldn't he want to sue he's got lawyers and He's got a good case.
He's a public figure that benefits from this news being in the media on a regular basis.
In terms of who's benefiting from the litigation continuing and there being continuing press releases about it, Hodgett is the one who benefits.
Well, thanks for the conversation, thanks for explaining it, and I think it feels like everybody should be a little bit more reasonable on this kind of stuff, and maybe it's not as bad for the SPLC as most people think, but I guess we can sort of leave it there as my memory card's about to fill up.
So, you know, everybody watching, thanks for hanging out.
Will, do you want to mention your Twitter real quick?
