CNN on Tuesday settled a defamation lawsuit filed by Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann
A lawyer for Sandmann declined to comment on the settlement but confirmed to Fox News that lawsuits against The Washington Post and NBC were ongoing. Fox 19 also reported that Sandmann attorney L. Lin Wood told the judge they planned to sue media company Gannett, the publisher of the Cincinnati Enquirer among other newspapers, within 60 days. Gannett did not immediately comment either.
Yes, We settled with CNN.— Nick Sandmann (@N1ckSandmann) January 7, 2020
Last March, Sandmann's attorneys launched their suit against CNN for its coverage of the incident before all the facts had surfaced. The teen was seeking a whopping $800 million in damages between the three news outlets.
I do wish we knew the amount of the settlement. But I suspect that it was a significant amount, enough for Lin Wood and Sandmann to accept it.
Even so, this is a huge victory for Sandman after he was trashed in the media by CNN and so many others who were exploiting hatred of the kid for ratings.
Lin Wood says they are preparing to sue Nathan Phillips, Gannett, and the owners of the Enquirer:
A lawsuit is expected to be filed against Phillips, Wood said. He indicated that lawsuit would seek $5 million, but the judge said that Phillips does not have as much money as the other defendants.They also plan to sue Gannett, owners of The Enquirer, according to Wood.He said he will bring that to the judge in the next 60 days.Attorneys say the money they’re seeking is not designed to compensate Nick, but to “deter the defendants” from doing the same thing (that they’re accused of) in the future.
Exactly. This is really about protecting others from the same horrendous coverage and hateful attacks as were suffered by Sandmann. Lin Wood said it got so bad that Sandmann and his family “had to move from their home temporarily” and that he “was not permitted to attend school directly after the trip to Washington.”
CNN settles lawsuit with Nick Sandmann stemming from viral video controversy
ReplyDeleteNew York (CNN Business) CNN has settled a lawsuit with a Kentucky high school student who was at the center of a viral video controversy, a spokesperson for the news network confirmed Tuesday.
No other details were immediately available. An attorney for the student, Nicholas Sandmann, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Sandmann only tweeted, "Yes, we settled with CNN."
The news was first reported by WXIX-TV. The local outlet said a settlement figure was not made public at a court hearing in Covington, Kentucky.
The settlement will allow CNN to avoid a lengthy and potentially unpredictable trial. Sandmann sought $275 million in damages in the lawsuit he filed against CNN last March.
Sandmann, a student at Covington Catholic High School, became a national news story when he was in Washington on January 18, 2019, for the annual March for Life rally.
In a video that gained national attention, Sandmann was in an encounter with Omaha tribe elder Nathan Phillips, who was beating a hand-held drum and singing at the Indigenous Peoples March at the Lincoln Memorial on the same day.
Another video that surfaced days later provided additional context for the encounter, but the first video had gone viral, touching off widespread controversy as photos of the teenager and the red Make America Great Again hat he was wearing spread across social media.
In the second video, a group of black men who identified as members of the Black Hebrew Israelites were seen taunting the students from Covington Catholic High School with disparaging language and shouting racist slurs at participants in the Indigenous Peoples Rally and other passersby.
Sandmann at the time strongly denied accusations against him, saying he had been trying to "defuse the situation" by "remaining motionless and calm."
Major news outlets, including the Washington Post, the Associated Press and CNN, covered the aftermath of the incident.
Sandmann also filed lawsuits against NBC Universal and The Washington Post. In July, a federal judge in Kentucky dismissed the lawsuit against The Washington Post. Part of that lawsuit, however, was later reinstated in October.