Sioux City, Iowa — A $77-million lawsuit filed by a U.S. Congressman from California (who has ties to northwest Iowa) against Hearst Magazines, the publisher of Esquire Magazine, and one of their writers is still alive after a federal appeals court ruled that parts of it have merit.
California Congressman Devon Nunes filed the suit in Federal District Court in Sioux City over what his lawsuit contends was a “Hit Piece” authored by Esquire writer Ryan Lizza prior to the 2018 congressional elections.
According to the complaint, Nunes asserted that the article, which was entitled, “Devin Nunes Family Farm Is Hiding A Politically Explosive Secret,” was “sensational and scandalous.”
The article at the heart of the lawsuit was published in September 2018, and in the words of the lawsuit complaint, the defendants “knowingly and recklessly injured Nunes’ reputation with a scandalous hit piece that intentionally disparaged Nunes and his family.” The filing also accused Nunes of “dishonesty, deceit, conspiracy and unethical practices, and severely impugned Nunes’ integrity and skills as a United States Congressman.”
The article attempted to paint a negative image of Nunes and indicated that there was allegedly a scandal due to Nunes’ family’s move to Sibley from California a decade earlier, and that Nunes’ family members allegedly knowingly employed undocumented workers.
The suit was dismissed in August, 2020. But the 8th Circuit Court Of Appeals has ruled there are parts of the suit that deserve to be reconsidered.
The three-judge appeals court panel ruled unanimously that the Federal District Court was right to dismiss the claim that the story defamed Nunes by alleging he used his position as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Two other decisions were reversed.
The Federal District Court said that Nunes’ claim that the allegation that the Nunes family employed undocumented workers amounted to “defamation by implication” was not substantiated. They said, “no reasonable reader” could make that conclusion. But the appeals court disagreed.
The appeals court also said that the allegation that Lizza was trying to get more people to read his article when he tweeted about it in 2019 has merit, and amounts to republication. They wrote, “The complaint here adequately alleges that Lizza intended to reach and actually reached a new audience by publishing a tweet about Nunes and a link to the article.” The judge writing the opinion stated, “In November 2019, Lizza was on notice of the article’s alleged defamatory implication by virtue of this lawsuit. The complaint alleges that he then consciously presented the material to a new audience by encouraging readers to peruse his ‘strange tale’ about ‘immigration policy,’ and promoting that ‘I’ve got a story for you.’ Under those circumstances, the complaint sufficiently alleges that Lizza republished the article after he knew that the Congressman denied knowledge of undocumented labor on the farm or participation in any conspiracy to hide it.”
The court sent the case back to the Federal District Court for further proceedings on Nunes’ claims of defamation by implication and republication.
There’s another case in federal court filed by the Nunes family, alleging that Lizza defamed them as well. All claims except for the one in which they allege that Lizza and his publisher defamed them by saying they knowingly employed undocumented workers, were dismissed. The trial on that lone claim is scheduled for February of next year.
