Pay Up, Mr. Mann
https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/01/pay-up-mr-mann/
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.
