Media Companies Must Face Coal Executive's $12 Billion Libel Suit

Don Blankenship alleges that he lost a race for U.S. Senate because he was called a "felon."

His suit concerns the aftermath of a 2015 trial where he faced charges related a 2010 explosion at one of his company's mines. A jury found him not guilty of the most serious counts, but he was convicted of a misdemeanor for conspiring to violate safety standards. The reason why big media outlets are now defendants largely comes down references to him as a "felon" or "convicted felon" — a technically imprecise assessment given that he was cleared of the felony charges.

We won't fully go through all 80 pages of the opinion , but Judge Copenhaver repeatedly comes to conclusion that Blankenship can state a viable claim for defamation. He shrugs off the defendants' contention that challenged statements were substantially true, and drawing inferences, accepts that Blankenship can plausibly allege that defendants published statements with actual malice.

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