Michael Leidig, et al. v. BuzzFeed, Inc.

This Court has held that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press requires that when a plaintiff sues a media defendant for libel, based on a publication of public concern, it is the plaintiff’s burden to prove that the libelous statement is false, supplanting the general common-law rule that falsity of a libel was presumed and truth was an affirmative defense. Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U.S. 767, 775-76, 106 S.Ct. 1558, 1563, 89 L.Ed.2d 783 (1986). Does the First Amendment also alter the weight to be accorded a libel plaintiff’s evidence, rendering the plaintiff unable, by his or her sworn statement or testimony that he or she has not done the bad thing the libel asserts, to create a question of fact as to whether the libel is true or false? A panel of the Second Circuit has so held in this case, concluding that language in the earlier opinion in Celle v. Filipino Reporter Enters. Inc., 209 F.3d 163, 188 (2d Cir. 2000) teaches that the First Amendment prevents a libel plaintiff, in this case a journalist labeled by a lengthy BuzzFeed article “The King of Bullsh*t News,” from creating an issue of fact as to truth or falsity with his own testimony. That language is: “While a bland, cryptic claim of falsity supported by the credibility of a witness might be sufficient to establish falsity in other civil cases, the First Amendment demands more.”