Pay Up, Mr. Mann

National Review Online

Friday, January 10, 2025

 

For more than eight years, the climate scientist Michael Mann harassed National Review through litigation over a blog post — until, eventually, the First Amendment brought an end to his attack. This week, a court in our nation’s capital ordered Mann to pay us $530,820.21 worth of attorney’s fees and costs, and to do so within 30 days. It is time for him to get out his checkbook, and sign on the dotted line.

 

This restitution is welcome, if incomplete. As was made clear during the discovery process, Mann’s explicitly stated intention was to use a “major lawsuit” as a vehicle with which to “ruin National Review.” Happily, Mann failed in this endeavor. But, while all’s well that ends well, his failure exacted costs nevertheless. Between 2012 and 2019 — with the courts inexplicably refusing to apply legal provisions ostensibly designed to prevent frivolous lawsuits such as Mann’s — we were forced to spend a considerable amount of time and money defending ourselves against his malicious, meritless suit. Between 2019 and now, we have been obliged to expend yet more effort trying to recoup at least some of our costs. This week’s award will not undo all of the damage that Mann has inflicted upon us, and upon journalism more broadly — we had asked for $1 million in fees and costs, and even that was a fraction of what we have spent — but it will, at least, go some way toward making us whole.

 

The details of Mann’s conduct here remain shocking — especially in a nation such as the United States, which was built atop the foundations of free expression. All those years, all those words, all of that litigation, over . . . a couple of blog posts that criticized Mann for an argument that he had offered up during a quotidian political dispute. Science — to which Mann is supposed to be devoted — inevitably involves disagreement. And yet, Mann proved incapable of handling dissent. Instead of engaging in debate, he sued us — for defamation and for the infliction of emotional distress. This, suffice it to say, is not how debate in America should work.

 

The legal system hasn’t covered itself in glory, either. Our own justice was repeatedly delayed, and, when it arrived, it was via the back door rather than as part of a ringing endorsement of the right to free speech. And, disgracefully, both of our co-litigants, Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg, have been ordered to pay damages. It is often said that, in extended legal proceedings such as these, the process can serve as the punishment. So it has been. Or, at least, so it had been, until now. Hitherto, Michael Mann has engaged in his censorship campaign with impunity. The award of fees has finally exacted a price.

 

The promise of American law is that there will be material consequences for bad behavior, and, after twelve years, there finally have been. Mann’s behavior throughout has been appalling. Now, he must pay up.