Mann v competitive enterprise institute recognizes that a jury would find their comments as deragatory, false and damaging, and the suit was dropped because Mann delayed the proceedings as he was "busy with other things".
No where was his data found fraudulent - the court recognized that Mr.Ball's statements are derogatory. The delay is a technicality that has nothing to do with science.
The article you linked is very inflamatory and makes this seem much more of a big deal than it is - nowhere do they discuss the court decision itseld, but they bring up more than 3 scientists from the 90's shitting on climate change.
He didn't spend 9 years fighting a very expensive lawsuit and then, when he finally had a chance to prove that his work wasn't fraudulent in front of a judge, decide he was busy with other things lol! He refused to present the relevant evidence because his goal from the start was an ideologically motivated litigation war, in his own words:
thanks Phil. there is a possibility that I can ruin National Review over this. Going to talk w/ some big time libel lawyers to see if there is the potential for a major lawsuit here that will bring this filthy organization down for good.
But then National Review was removed from the case and so there was no chance for him to achieve his goal via abusive litigation anymore.
Mann is unquestionably a fraud even in the eyes of his colleagues. He deliberately deleted data that disproved his reconstruction because he knew that if he was honest "skeptics would have a field day":
As lead author, Mann decided to omit the Briffa data without the input of his other lead authors.. . . Mann’s own collaborators cautioned him against the deletion. IPCC TAR Coordinating Lead Author Chris Folland wrote to Mann that Briffa’s data “contradicts the multiproxy curve and dilutes the message rather significantly.”. . . Briffa himself urged Mann not to succumb to “pressure to present a nice tidy story” by “ignor[ing]” his post-1960 results. . . . Mann agreed with them on the merits but bemoaned the data’s political impact: “[I]f we show Keith’s series . . . skeptics [will] have a field day.”
"Technicalities" like Mann filing a lawsuit and then never actually doing anything to move it forward? The judge is extremely harsh towards Mann in the Mann v Ball case dismissal, stating in plain language that Mann has engaged in abusive behavior. He also clearly tried to BS the court about the reasons for delay.
That sort of behavior is consistent with abusing the legal system so he could say he was suing for defamation without ever having to actually win - for a decade! Dismissing such a case isn't a technicality. As the judge points out, Ball got witnesses lined up in his defense and Mann delayed so long that Ball's witnesses actually died of old age.
Honestly, I hadn't read the dismissals before. But it's laughable to call this dismissed on technicalities. Mann comes across as an abusive, manipulative and extraordinarily untrustworthy person in all of this. A clearer case of abusive litigation is hard to find.
But you agree that all the judgment also recognize that the jury would've edit: been able to recognize the comments as defamatory, and that, factually, in reality, the cases were - black on white - dissmissed on technicalities instead of from an actual judgment of anything scientific?
The whole point is that you bringing this up has nothing to do with the subject of this conversation.
And that you were blatantly wrong and misguiding in saying that he "lost the case" as the case was not argued
> But you agree that all the judgment also recognize that the jury would’ve recognized the comments as defamatory
The Mann v. Ball judgement [0] does no such thing (as is common for a procedural dismissal of this kind, it doesn’t address the merits at all.) I’m not going to track down the rest when the first one I check shows that you are wrong on the blanket claim, but if you’d like to point to any specific judgement that meets your description, feel free.
Edit: here it is
When looking at the bottom of the climate change litigation database on Mann v Competitive enterprise, if you go read the second to last summary, it states what I was meaning to say. I think I read it a bit quickly - it states that Mann met the burden of proving that a jury could find actual malice...etc. The to me is enough to indicate that the courts were supporting the suits as having some degree of validity. I think I was a little heavy worded in my prior comment.
What I meant to say was that all courts recognized some degree of validity to his claims of derogatory comments, by not dismissing his suits on those grounds, but on technicalities. So the whole thing is simply inconclusive, while the other commenter keeps arguing that it proves Mann is the antichrist.
So this whole tangent feels unnecessary and goal-post moving, as it has nothing to do with science.
> if you go read the second to last summary, it states what I was meaning to say. I think I read it a bit quickly - it states that Mann met the burden of proving that a jury could find actual malice…etc. The to me is enough to indicate that the courts were supporting the suits as having some degree of validity. I think I was a little heavy worded in my prior comment.
Assuming you mean the third to last document in the reverse chronological listing (the second to last is the plaintiff’s amended complaint, not a finding of the court), this is a ruling on a very early motion to dismiss, and what it actually found is that it was too early to determine whether or not there was, as a matter of law, sufficient evidence for a jury to find “actual malice” to the required standard of proof. [0] The first (most recent) document in that list (the one I linked upthread) is on a later motion for summary judgement, and, on the same issue, the court found explicitly against Mann on “actual malice” from CEI, finding that there was not evidence on which a reasonable jury could find that, which is why they dismissed his claim against CEI. That earlier ruling is not the court endorsing any degree of validity of any of Mann's claims, it is simply stating it is too early to address whether or not those claims were material disputes of fact for the jury, much less whether they had validity (which is mostly what the jury decides, though the court can resolve it when it reaches the level where there is no basis for a jury to find one way or the other.)
> What I meant to say was that all courts recognized some degree of validity to his claims of derogatory comments,
That’s simply false; some found that there would be triable issue of fact on falsity, but that’s not recognizing any merit of the claim, and others simply did not address the question at all.
> What I meant to say was that all courts recognized some degree of validity to his claims of derogatory comments, by not dismissing his suits on those grounds, but on technicalities.
Dismissing claims because of failure to provide sufficient evidence to meet required elements of the claim (like “actual malice” against CEI) is not a “technicality” (which is a bad name for procedural misconduct resulting in a dismissal with prejudice, anyway) but a ruling on the merits of the claim.
> So the whole thing is simply inconclusive, while the other commenter keeps arguing that it proves Mann is the antichrist.
I don’t see anyone claiming that Mann is the antichrist. He is a serial abuser of the legal systems of multiple jurisdictions, however, that is clear, and his claims on this issue have either been dismissed on the merits or because of his culpable failure to pursue them.
[0] “At this stage, the evidence before the Court does not amount to a showing of clear and convincing as to ‘actual malice,’ however there is sufficient evidence to find that further discovery may uncover evidence of ‘actual malice.’ It is therefore premature to make a determination as to whether the CEI Defendants did not act with ‘actual malice.’” http://climatecasechart.com/case/mann-v-competitive-enterpri...
Thanks for taking time to write this up, I was sloppy in my reading - as I said, I lost interest in these suits quite quickly. Sorry if I mislead anyone, not my intention.
On the topic of Mann's science itself, I don't find anything in these suits to affect our view of it. Do you?
No, the jury would not have found it defamatory if it were true, which it was.
The cases were dismissed without evaluating the science because of Mann's behavior. The people he sued wanted to just get on with it and debate the science, but Mann literally filed suit and then never turned up to his own legal proceedings. Hence the judge's displeasure.
Apparently Mann tried to make the same argument you made about not losing the case. He lost all the cases. If the judge dismisses your case that is losing. You don't get to file a lawsuit, never turn up and then when the judge tosses you out, claim you won.
> Mann v competitive enterprise institute recognizes that a jury would find their comments as deragatory, false and damaging
No, Mann v. Competitive Enterprise Institute had Mann’s claims against CEI dismissed at summary judgement because Mann’s evidence was insufficient for any reasonable jury to conclude that the required standard (“actual malice”) was met in CEI’s conduct, irrespectice of whether the charges were false or not. [0] (“actual malice” was held to be a triable issue of fact for the jury against an individual defendant in the same case, as was the actual falsity of the charges. I believe the case against the individual defendant was abandoned because CEI was the real target, or just because of Mann’s pattern of abandoning cases because he was “too busy” to prosecute them after filing.)
I wonder if in general you are making the mistake of assuming that motions to dismiss or for summary judgement in which the court is required to assume that the jury would find for Mann in any cases where there is a material issue of fact constitute “recognition” that the jury would find for Mann, which is decidedly not the case.
No where was his data found fraudulent - the court recognized that Mr.Ball's statements are derogatory. The delay is a technicality that has nothing to do with science.
The article you linked is very inflamatory and makes this seem much more of a big deal than it is - nowhere do they discuss the court decision itseld, but they bring up more than 3 scientists from the 90's shitting on climate change.
I'd be weary of this news outlet.