From Friday’s decision by Judge Denise Cote (SDNY) in Farrakhan vs. Anti-Defamation League:
The disputed statements referring to Farrakhan as anti-Semitic are non-actionable statements of opinion. The communications in which they were published contain “the exposition of the facts on which [they are] based” – that is, direct quotes from Farrakhan. Therefore, statements calling Farrakhan anti-Semitic cannot be “reasonably construed as implying the assertion of undisclosed facts justifying the opinion.”
The disputed title of the ADL blog post (“Farrakhan Predicts Another Holocaust”) appears at first glance to be a statement “that can be proven true or false,” but “the entire context of the communication in which the statement appears [and] the broader social context and surrounding circumstances are such as to signal” to readers that what is being read “is likely to be opinion, not fact.” The post’s full title, and its lede, indicate that its topic is the Savior’s Day speech. The post contains direct quotes from that speech such as “[t]he Synagogue of Satan destroyed the country”, including one that could rightly be interpreted as a reference to the Holocaust. [The relevant quote is this: A Jewish man said to me, ‘You know, we say never again. Never again will we be in the oven. Never again.’ I said, ‘Hold it.’ You can say that to men, but you can’t say that to God. Because the Bible says, behold the day cometh that shall burn—as a what?—as an oven.] The full context of the communication indicates that its title is an interpretation of the facts disclosed in the article. The same goes for the claim in the SWC article that Farrakhan “invoked the New Testament’s ‘Synagogue of Satan’ to demonize Judaism.” …
The part of the Ticketmaster Letter that implies that Farrakhan referred to “Jews as ‘termites’ and ‘satanics'” has “a precise meaning that is easily understood.” Is it true or false that Farrakhan said that. For these statements, however, Farrakhan has not alleged facts that permit a reasonable inference of falsehood or actual malice.
As for the implication that Farrakhan called Jews satanic, the Ticketmaster Letter ends with the hyperlinked statement that “[y]You can learn more about Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam on our website.” The words “Louis Farrakhan” are hyperlinked; clicking the link takes you to a web page listing additional direct quotes from Farrakhan and which is in turn attached as an exhibit to the SAC [Second Amended Complaint]. Many of these direct quotes include Farrakhan’s use of the phrase “Satanic Jews”. Thus, regarding this disputed statement, Farrakhan failed to allege falsehood, an essential element of a defamation claim.
Finally, SAC did not file a defamation lawsuit regarding Farrakhan’s use of the word termites. As the SAC admits, Farrakhan stated the following: “When they talk about Farrakhan, call me a hater, you know what they do, call me anti-Semite. Stop it, they’re anti-termites!” Again, Farrakhan did not assert facts that would “raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence” that Greenblatt or the ADL made the statement with knowledge or reckless disregard for the falsity of the statement. On the contrary, SAC itself adduces facts that would disappoint this expectation.
Thus, Farrakhan has not made any defamation claims regarding any of the disputed statements….
[As to Farrakhan’s claim for injunctive relief,] enjoining defendants from expressing their beliefs about plaintiffs would amount to a “judicial order suppressing speech…based on the content of the speech and prior to its actual expression” – in other words, a preemptive restriction of speech. There is a “heavy presumption against the constitutional validity of any imposition of a prior restraint.” Preemptive restrictions constitute “the most serious and least tolerable violation” of our freedom of speech. Nothing in the SAC comes close to the “unparalleled power of the presumption against prior restraint.”
Farrakhan also claimed that the ADL’s speech had caused various entities to remove him from the platform, but the court rejected that claim as well.
Nathan Ellis Siegel and Adam Ivan Rich (Davis Wright Tremaine LLP) represent the ADL; Julie Gerchick and Patricia L. Glaser (Glaser Weil Fink Howard Jordan & Shapiro LLP) represent the Simon Wiesenthal Center.