Roughly a year ago, we reported on Deadspin’s epic miscalculation that resulted in a lawsuit.
In our report on the livestream, we talked about how Deadspin’s Carron Phillips wrote an article titled “The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress.” In said article, he displayed a clearly doctored photo of a young 9 year old KC fan wearing the team colors and headdress in support of his favorite football team. The photo was taken from an angle that only showed the black side of the boy’s face paint and the article proceeded to accuse the child of black face and cultural appropriation. Carron then continued to write about how the child was being taught racism, hatred, and bigotry by his parents. Within days of this article being released, the parents of the boy filed complaint against Deadspin and Carron Phillips, citing defamation and libel, requesting a retraction. Instead of retracting the article, the publication decided to change the title of the article, rather than retract or publish a correction.
A mere week after, the family filed a lawsuit against the offending media company, to which the company responded that the piece was opinion only.
Fast forward a year, and we finally hear an update in this situation. Not only did Deadspin get sold by their owners to another media company, but we hear a development in the case. In the case filings, we’ve found that the father lost his job, due to misguided harassment from the internet, as the family got doxxed by some malicious actors and found that the child was bullied at school.
In our experience, proving financial loss, as well as intentionally false statements in written form, equals defamation and libel in court. To nobody’s surprise, Deadspin filed to dismiss the lawsuit, however, the judge stated that the story “went beyond an expression of opinion” because it “flatly stated” what it saw the child’s “motivation” for painting his face as an “intent to disrespect and hate African Americans.” The judge also further highlighted how Phillips “devotes substantial time to describing H.A. (the 9 year old boy), and attributing negative racial motivation to him” and appears derogatory towards his parents by suggesting they taught their son racist values.
Obviously, the judge denied Deadspin’s motion to dismiss, and now the case moves on to discovery.
Laggin’ Out will continue to watch this story for updates as it moves to pretrial discovery.
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