After threats and plans, President Trump finally sued the BBC in the Southern District of Florida over a 2024 piece that spliced separate parts of his Ellipse Speech. The Complaint does not tell us much beyond what news stories and Trump’s lawyer’s pre-suit letter told us.
Some quick thoughts:
• They are aware of the problems of personal jurisdiction in the U.S. and in Florida. It spends a lot of space trying to link the story to Florida and to link the BBC to the American distributor. I do not know enough about the facts to say whether it works–and remember that jurisdictional facts are not taken as true for purposes of a 12(b)(2). Lexi Lahav (Cornell) raises the specter of FNC dismissal (and I would add venue transfer to D.C.) even if there is jurisdiction in Florida.
• I remain unconvinced that the splicing of the speech so changed the meaning as to render it not substantially true. Unfortunately, the BBC’s apologies –for giving “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”–may have surrendered that argument.
• Lots of allegations about BBC bias and criticisms of BBC practices by various people, including by the shortest-serving PM in British history. I guess they help the inference of actual malice. But there is a lot of the usual conflating of ill will (malice in the colloquial sense) with what NYT is talking about.
• The complaint seeks damages of $ 5 billion, which is absurd and designed to capture media attention. And it worked. Worse. The complaint contains two counts–defamation and statutory deceptive practices–and each count demands $ 5 billion. So some outlets have reported that Trump seeks $ 10 billion (one for each count). It took several long texts to explain to one outlet why that was wrong. There is a reason that some districts have a local rule prohibiting complaints from enumerating a damages request (beyond what is necessary to meet a jurisdictional minimum).
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