NEW ORLEANS (Legal Newsline) - ABC News must defend itself against a defamation suit by a high school football coach who was fired from his job after a video emerged of his team chanting the N-word at a pregame locker room rally.
The news network argued it was immune to suit because it reported on an issue of public interest. The fired coach was Black and worked at a historically Black high school.
A Louisiana trial court dismissed lawsuits against ABC News and Interactive One, an online news service, for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. But Louisiana’s Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal, in a Feb. 16 decision, reversed the dismissal of the action against ABC News.
Nathanial Jones sued St. Augustine High School, ABC News, Interactive One and others after he was fired in October 2019 over a video uploaded to social media showing football players and an assistant coach engaging in a “pre-game chant” using the racial slur. Jones wasn’t present during the chant, but the school dismissed him anyway.
Interactive One published an online article with the headline, “Black Football Coach Fired For His Team Using [the N-word] At Historically Black School.” ABC News published a separate online article with the headline, “High school football coach fired after using racial slur in pre-game chant.”
Jones sued Interactive One, and ABC News in September 2020 for defamation. The trial court granted Interactive One’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and ABC’s motion for failure to state a claim in May 2021.
Jones argued millions of people, including Louisiana residents, read Interactive One’s article, giving the court personal jurisdiction over his claim. Louisiana law provides for personal jurisdiction over defendants who transact “any business in the state,” but that power is limited by U.S. Supreme Court decisions requiring companies to have “minimum contacts” with the state. Interactive One is a Delaware corporation based in New York that doesn’t specifically target Louisiana readers, the appeals court ruled.
“The sole act of making information available online is insufficient to establish minimum contacts,” the appeals court ruled.
ABC News argued it was protected against liability because Jones was a high-profile coach and it reported on an issue of public interest. The appeals court disagreed. The coach’s firing didn’t involve statements before any official bodies, issues being considered by official bodies, made in public or to further a constitutional right.
In order to prevail, the appeals court went on, ABC had to prove there was no cause of action. Having failed to do so, the court said, “the burden of proving probability of success regarding his defamation claim does not shift to Mr. Jones.”