From Freeman v. Giuliani, decided today by Chief Judge Beryl Howell (D.D.C.); the court concluded that the facts as alleged by plaintiffs would, if proved, suffice to authorize liability—naturally, there's still question whether plaintiffs will introduce enough evidence to defeat an eventual motion for summary judgment, and whether they will eventually persuade a jury (or whether the case will settle in light of that possibility):
After the polls closed across the country on November 3, 2020—the first Presidential election in U.S. history to be conducted in the midst of a deadly global pandemic—the results in some states were immediately called, with either former Vice President Biden or then-President Trump declared the obvious winner. In other states, including Georgia, the margins of victory were substantially closer, and voters and candidates went to bed that night not knowing who had won. As days passed, local and state election officials diligently conducted the counting of absentee ballots and manual recounts, but the void of clear results became filled with increasingly outlandish paranoia from those claiming the election was being "stolen."
Defendant Rudolph Giuliani—a current media personality and former politician once dubbed "America's mayor"—propagated and pushed that false narrative. Caught in the crossfire of Giuliani's campaign to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 election were plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ArShaye ("Shaye") Moss (collectively, "plaintiffs"). Freeman was a temporary election worker with the Fulton County Registration and Elections Department in Fulton County, Georgia during the 2020 general election, while Moss worked on Fulton County's absentee ballot operation. After Giuliani made a litany of statements and accusations against plaintiffs concerning their activities as election workers, Freeman and Moss initiated the instant lawsuit in December 2021, against Giuliani, and others, for[, among other things,] defamation ….
