After the case was thrown out in August, on Monday, Navy veteran Zachary Young filed an appeal of his defamation suit against Puck News. In addition to wanting Florida’s First District Court of Appeals to allow the case to proceed, Young also requested they order a new judge be assigned to preside over the case; pointing to Judge William Scott Henry’s comments about the merits of the case. Just as he did with his appeal for his defamation case against the Associated Press.
The appeal filed by Young’s counsel Jason Greaves, didn’t hold back as it repeatedly accused Florida’s 14th Judicial Circuit of coming to “erroneous” conclusions in Puck’s favor on multiple fronts and upending the order of operations for how defamation cases were supposed to proceed:
The circuit court erroneously dismissed Appellants’ Amended Complaint with prejudice, ignoring reasonable defamatory interpretations, and denied them leave to seek punitive damages, improperly preventing Appellants from “protect[ing their] own good name.”
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As an initial matter, the circuit court erroneously held that Puck’s articles were protected under the fair report privilege.
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Here, it was erroneous for the circuit court to have determined as a matter of law that Puck’s articles gave a reasonably fair and accurate report on the CNN case. Specifically, the circuit court found that Puck’s statements were merely “correct accounts of what was transpiring in the CNN Case at the time.” And that just because certain things were omitted or presented with bias is of no consequence. This, however, ignores the reality of the articles.
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The court erroneously concluded, as a matter of law, that Puck’s September Article was not capable of defamatory meaning, because of the presumed “context” of Puck’s affirmative defense of fair report privilege. At this pleading stage, however, where the defamatory statement, on its face and without innuendo, accused Mr. Young of preying on vulnerable Afghans and charging them exorbitant rates, the circuit court cannot rewrite the statement for Puck.
As in his initial complaint, Young’s filing argued that Puck News (a media industry-focus publication), via coverage from “entertainment law expert” Eriq Gardner, took CNN’s side and presented slanted reporting that aimed to clean some of the egg of their face:
Gardner described the CNN report, writing, “reporter Alex Marquardt detailed how, following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the government, panicked locals turned to private contractors to help them flee the country.” Gardner followed this sentence immediately with the following: “One such contractor was Zachary Young, a Navy Veteran whose firm was charging people hefty fees—sometimes tens of thousands of dollars—to escape the Taliban.”
Through this framing, Gardner unequivocally adopted CNN’s false characterization of events, embracing them as his own, and claimed that Mr. Young preyed on “panicked locals” by charging them “tens of thousands of dollars.”
Greaves also drew the appellate court’s attention to how Gardner tried to dismiss the merits of Young case, trial, and victory over CNN by suggesting it was only political:
Gardner went on to express doubt about the verdict, writing, “CNN’s loss isn’t a stunner, although many may find it questionable whether the network’s reporters truly branded Young a criminal war profiteer, as he alleged.” Rather, “CNN’s real problem was geographical: the trial was set in Panama City, one of Florida’s deepest-red outposts.”
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Separately, the articles repeatedly imply—through juxtaposition, selective omissions, and snide commentary about geography and politics—that Mr. Young actually did what CNN accused him of and only won because of partisan courts.
In a statement to NewsBusters, Greaves said: “Puck didn’t just report on the CNN case, it revived CNN’s false accusation after a court had already ruled it was untrue. When a media outlet repeats a lie knowing the truth, that’s not journalism. It’s defamation, plain and simple.”
As he did with the AP case, Young also wanted a new judge to oversee the case on remand:
Because of the flippant way that the court below composed the Order, Appellants reasonably fear that, on remand, their claims would not receive the detached and neutral attention to which they are entitled, and thus respectfully request this Court order that this case be reassigned to a new judge. Throughout the Order, the court below demonstrated bias toward Appellants by inappropriately invoking the analogy that this case was a bad sequel to the CNN case that never should have been made.
As NewsBusters reported back in August, Judge William Scott Henry dismissed the case with language that cast doubt on the merits of the case:
Because of the flippant way that the court below composed the Order, Appellants reasonably fear that, on remand, their claims would not receive the detached and neutral attention to which they are entitled, and thus respectfully request this Court order that this case be reassigned to a new judge. Throughout the Order, the court below demonstrated bias toward Appellants by inappropriately invoking the analogy that this case was a bad sequel to the CNN case that never should have been made.
During the CNN defamation trial, Judge Henry did occasionally admonish both sides, but in particular CNN's lead counsel David Axelrod for spreading lies about Young in the courtroom. He forced Axelrod to apologize to the Navy veteran, which Young understandably did not accept.
Henry also looked out for the media reporting on the trial. He looked to confirm with the press pool that Axelrod had obtained our consensus to not sure images of their star witness (they apparently didn’t inform him that the trial was televised online). When NewsBusters spoke out and informed Judge Henry that we were not consulted, he sided with us and instructed the witness would be shown.
