A federal judge denied multiple motions to dismiss defamation lawsuits filed by former Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann against The New York Times, Rolling Stone, ABC News and CBS News.
Attorney Lin Wood made the announcement Thursday on Twitter that the cases will be moving forward.
Motions to Dismiss @N1ckSandmann defamation lawsuits filed in KY federal court against NY Times, Rolling Stone, ABC, & CBS were just DENIED.
NBC motion has previously been DENIED.
Gannett motion was briefed on different time schedule & a DENIAL is expected in next few weeks.
— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) October 1, 2020
There is still a pending motion to dismiss his suit against Gannett.
Sandmann sued multiple left-leaning news outlets for defamation last year in light of reports surrounding a politically controversial incident involving the teen.
The orders denying the motion to dismiss the cases against The New York Times, CBS News, ABC News and Rolling Stone are similar, according to Legal Insurrection.
"This news story is alleged to be false and defamatory," the reasoning in The New York Times case read.
"Sandmann further alleges that this publication by defendant and similar stories by other news media caused him to be harassed in public, causing him great emotional distress.
"Sandmann also alleges that defendant's article 'is now forever a part of the historical Internet record and will haunt and taint Nicholas for the remainder of his natural life and impugn his reputation for generations to come.'"
Sandmann and the other teens from Covington made national news when a confrontation erupted after the January 2019 March for Life.
The initial video spread by some outlets implied that the teens wearing “Make America Great Again” hats started the confrontation with Native American activist Nathan Phillips, but video that showed the incident more fully made it clear they did not.
Many also assumed Sandmann was smirking and disrespectful while face-to-face with Phillips, who was chanting and banging a drum.
A complete version of the video, however, showed Phillips had walked toward the boys.
"Today marks another important step towards achieving justice against a media that thinks it has a license to smear," Sandmann told The Post Millenial.
Sandmann has already settled lawsuits against The Washington Post and CNN with an undisclosed amount in each case.
In 2019, Lawyer Todd McMurtry said the goal of the suits was to change the “mainstream media’s” behavior, Fox News reported.
“Clearly, what we want to do is stop them from behaving in a way that discards all journalistic integrity,” he said. “Here they didn’t investigate. They took something off of Twitter and put it right out into the media.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
The post Nick Sandmann scores important court win in defamation suit against NY Times, ABC, CBS appeared first on WND.
