A short excerpt from today's long decision by Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil (S.D.N.Y.) in The Satanic Temple, Inc. v. Newsweek Magazine LLC:
The Satanic Temple, Inc. … [sued] Newsweek Magazine LLC … [for alleged defamation] in the article titled "Orgies, Harassment, Fraud: Satanic Temple Rocked by Accusations, Lawsuit" published by Newsweek. After this Court's [earlier] Opinion and Order on Defendant's motion to dismiss, only one statement, "Accounts of sexual abuse being covered up in ways that were more than anecdotal" (the "Article Statement"), remains at issue….
The court grants Newsweek summary judgment as to that last statement. The court concludes that there's a material factual dispute as to what the statement would mean to a reasonable reader (and whether it's false):
