Mann thrice loses, however goes to courtroom anyway! (wellll, perhaps) – Watts Up With That?

From Mark Steyn’s opinion piece today at steynonline.com

You’re Once, Twice, Three Times a Loser…
Michael E Mann, Loser (Again) (and Again)

~Global warm-monger Michael E Mann’s defamation suit against me for maligning his hockey stick is now in its tenth year in the fetid septic tank of American “justice”. Way back in early 2013, when the healthy glow of late middle-age had not yet faded from my now wizened cheeks, I asked the (if memory serves) second trial judge if we could just get the hell on with it and go to trial. He turned me down, alas. But here we are, a mere eight-and-a-half years later, and my wish has very belatedly been granted. We will be going to trial, albeit with rather fewer defendants than once were.

If you’ve not been keeping track of the litigious Mann’s courtroom score card, here’s how it stands after last week’s ruling:

~Mann vs Professor Timothy Ball (British Columbia Supreme Court):
Case dismissed; Mann loses (and has been ordered to pay costs, which the bum and deadbeat has declined to do);

~Mann vs National Review (District of Columbia Superior Court):
Case dismissed; Mann loses;

~Mann vs Competitive Enterprise Institute (DC Sup Ct):
Case dismissed; Mann loses.

The links above are all to the full text of the court judgments, because Mann’s doting fans always respond with, “Oh, well, that’s just a news story, or a blog… It doesn’t mean it’s true.” When he lost to Tim Ball, he told these remarkably gullible Mann-bois that he hadn’t really lost, because the judge had tossed the suit before they got to trial, so it wasn’t like a real defeat on the merits.

Which is a bollocks argument – like saying, ah, well, in a narrow technical sense I “failed” on the written part of the driver’s test, so I never got into the car, so it’s not a real fail. He did the same when he lost to National Review, but a little more perfunctorily, I thought. And, unless I’ve missed it, he doesn’t seem to have bothered with his “losing the case is just an irrelevant technicality” with respect to CEI, so presumably even he grasps that at a certain point the arithmetic’s dispositive and you can’t keep insisting that that big pile of court rulings doesn’t mean anything.

For what it’s worth, I’m glad to be shorn of my co-defendants, if only because in an American courtroom, if you have multiple defendants all with their own legal teams, the defense table looks like a clown car, which I never feel helps you with the jury. So I’m happy it’s down to Rand Simberg and me. It is less heartening that this fourth trial judge does not seem to share the same grasp of the central question of the case as his predecessor (Trial Judge Number Three), who did a grand job of shrinking the suit to its essentials. Judge Irving’s ruling that, after a decade of tosspotting around, the case against me and Simberg shall now proceed to trial is not without its mordant aspects. For example, Mann’s evidence of the damage he has suffered:

Dr. Mann asserts that his reputation was harmed in the community and that he began to receive disapproving glances around town after the articles were published.

That may be because he’s big buddies with paedo-enabler Graham Spanier, currently banged up in the Big House for child endangerment. Ah, but you gotta laugh, haven’t you? Because otherwise you’d convene a grand international conference and expel America from the Common Law world for its grotesque perversion of the functioning system it inherited.

Obviously the odds aren’t good for an unlikeable foreigner in front of a DC jury, but that was true in 2012 so why worry about it all these years later?

Er, unless I’m even more unlikeable now than I was back then…

UPDATE: From the Competitive Enterprise Institute:

DC Superior Court Rules in Favor of CEI in Michael Mann Lawsuit

Today the Superior Court of the District of Columbia issued a decision granting CEI’s motion for summary judgment in a defamation lawsuit brought by climate scientist Michael Mann in 2012. The court meanwhile denied motions for summary judgment from two other defendants in the case, as well as Mann’s motion for judgment that statements criticizing his research were false.

Competitive Enterprise Institute President Kent Lassman said:

“We are gratified by the decision from the court to grant summary judgment on the claims against CEI brought by Michael Mann. The ruling is a testament to a robust public sphere where ideas are contested through evidence, speech, and debate.  We expect that the remaining defendants will be vindicated in time.”

From Anthony, I’d like to make a few opinion points, based on my experience.

1. Since we have observed that with Mann, “the process is the punishment”, he will likely draw out any demands for discovery for the upcoming court date as long as possible. Plus he’ll likely outright reject calls for discovery due and claim some sort of obtuse intellectual property right defense as to why he shouldn’t have to disclose anything. After all, the Mann is “saving the planet” and self-appointed demigods such as him can’t be subject to such distractions when the entire human race is at stake.

2. When he’s finally got his back up against the wall with the judge for failing to provide discovery items, he’ll likely just withdraw the lawsuit. He knows he can’t win on the merits, and he can’t risk providing discovery materials; otherwise his entire ego-based house of climate cards would come crashing down.

3. This process will take at least two more years, but could go as long as another five given the DC court of Molasses.

4. When he does withdraw, Mann will use the same set of excuses he has historically used to avoid any debate or discussion. This will include denigration, name-calling, social media tantrums, and the ever popular “not worth his time because I have a planet to save” argument. See Jor-El complex.

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