Barstool Sports activities Founder Dave Portnoy Defamation Lawsuit Dismissed

A information group gained a authorized victory this week after a decide dismissed a defamation lawsuit introduced towards the publication and several other of its staff by Barstool Sports activities founder Dave Portnoy.

Barstool Sports activities founder Dave Portnoy at an NBA basketball recreation in Might, pictured above. His defamation lawsuit was dismissed this week. (Picture: Adam Glanzman/Getty Photographs)

In Monday’s 21-page resolution, Boston federal Decide F. Dennis Saylor dominated that Portnoy did not show Insider had “malice” towards him when it reported on his alleged sexual escapades, the New York Put up reported.

In an expose beginning in 2021, Insider alleged Portnoy engaged in “violent and humiliating” sexcapades with a number of unnamed younger ladies, victims claimed.

However the decide concluded that Insider employees checked the ladies’s model of occasions with pictures, texts, social media, movies, medical experiences, police experiences, an Uber receipt, and “statements from at the least three associates who noticed or spoke with the ladies quickly after their interactions with [the] plaintiff.”

The “defendants’ impartial verification of the ladies’s accounts thus additional undercuts an inference of precise malice,” Saylor’s ruling mentioned, Regulation & Crime, a authorized publication, reported. A plaintiff usually must show malice to win in such a courtroom motion.

As a result of Portnoy is a public determine it additionally turns into more durable to show defamation, and the associated declare of invasion of privateness, in courtroom.

“Each authorized knowledgeable mentioned it was an uphill battle.” Portnoy mentioned in a latest Twitter put up.

Portnoy additionally didn’t rule out the potential of interesting Saylor’s ruling.

Malice Claimed

The articles had been categorized as “hit items,” and the Insider employees had “malicious intent” within the “smear marketing campaign,” in line with the lawsuit. The tales had been additionally labeled as “clickbait journalism,” which the lawsuit defined as suggesting “precise prison wrongdoing on Mr. Portnoy’s half with out additional clarification.”

Portnoy’s known as the ladies’s claims “an outright fabrication.” Portnoy beforehand mentioned intercourse was consensual.

The lawsuit said that the defendants “improperly and knowingly relied upon biased sources who demanded anonymity, all whereas being in possession of documentary proof that every supply’s story was unimaginable and unreliable.”

Insider and its employees moreover had a “plan to sensationalize a narrative in an effort to drive reader site visitors to an web location the place they might then be solicited to subscribe to [the] … tabloid-like Publication,” the swimsuit provides.

Among the many defendants named within the lawsuit had been Insider Chief Government Officer Henry Blodget, reporters Julia Black and Melkorka Licea, and editor Nicholas Carlson.

This isn’t what was mentioned in any respect. The decide mentioned the bar for a star to sue a media outlet may be very excessive. He mentioned your negligence in reporting is definitely protected. If he allowed this to go to discovery everyone knows it could have confirmed what a scumbag you’re. pic.twitter.com/n1UbV5xzdv

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) November 8, 2022

Articles Linked to Penn Leisure

Portnoy based Barstool Sports activities in 2003. In 2020, Penn Nationwide Gaming, now often called Penn Leisure, paid $163 million for a 36% stake in Barstool Sports activities. In August, Penn Leisure acquired the sports activities web site for $387 million.

The swimsuit additional claimed the articles had been printed on a date that coincided with Penn Nationwide Gaming’s quarterly earnings bulletins.

However Saylor mentioned the “proven fact that defendants printed the articles behind a paywall, and that they sought to extend income by publishing the tales, doesn’t give rise to an inference of precise malice.”

When reached for preliminary remark in response to the lawsuit, Insider spokesman Mario Ruiz earlier this 12 months instructed On line casino.org, “We stand behind our reporting and can defend the case vigorously.”

This week, Black, who was named within the lawsuit, in a tweet known as the decide’s ruling “gratifying.”