Ryan Lizza Prevails in District Court Against Devin Nunes (and Nunes' Family Members) in Nunes v. Lizza

The 101-page decision is at Nunes v. Lizza. The bottom line:

[D]efendants' motion for summary judgment … is granted as to NuStar plaintiffs' claim of defamation (Count I), granted as to NuStar plaintiffs' claim of defamation by implication (Count II), and granted as to Nunes' claim of defamation by implication (Count I).

Comments

[Nige]

Again, Devin Nunes.

[VinniUSMC]

Again' Devin Nunes

EV is just trying out his AAVE.

[Eugene Volokh]

Whoops, fixed, thanks!

[Dr. Ed 2]

No justice, no peace,

[VinniUSMC]

No Justins
No peace

Not sure what they have against Justins though.

[Dan Schiavetta]

A deep pocket must be funding all these meritless suits.

[Nelson]

Wait, Devin Nunes is a corrupt, litigious scumbag? Who knew?

[BeachLawyer]

Remember the good old days when Devin was. co-sponsoring the Discouraging Frivolous Litigation Act?

[Zarniwoop]

It's a long slog, but the TL,DR is that Nunes is upset because reporters alleged his family employed illegal immigrant labor. Let's go to the facts! Mmm, tasty facts:

NuStar plaintiffs provided a document listing all its employees and former employees, which included their names, proffered SSNs, dates of birth, and dates of employment.... This Court ordered the SSA to verify the SSNs of all disclosed NuStar Farms employees.... Of those employees who NuStar plaintiffs employed on or before September 30, 2018, 243 of 319 employees’ names, dates of birth, and SSNs did not match SSA records.

(Opinion, pp. 28-29)

The real fun starts at the bottom of p. 73: defendants' statements that the Nunes family knowingly hired illegal immigrants ... are "substantially, objectively true." (p. 77)

Every accusation is a confession, yet again. Nunes is lucky Iowa lacks an Anti-SLAPP law.

[Nelson]

Wait, over 75% if their employees were illegal immigrants? Holy shit. I assumed it was just more than normal, not most of their employees.

[Dr. Ed 2]

There is a high error rate with the SSA name matching system -- mine initially didn't match and my family has been in this country since something like 1674.

[John F. Carr]

Ten or twenty years ago California started requiring driver's license names to exactly match SSA computer records in spelling. Misery ensued. I don't know how California enforces the one true name rule now that drivers don't need to be legally in the country.

[Zarniwoop]

This isn’t hard to think through, people, and the excuses for Nunes patriotically flouting immigration law while grifting are getting lamer by the minute.

Here’s the list of non-SSA ways to establish identity for an AB-60 California license:

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/ab-60-user-friendly-guide-english-pdf/

TL,DR: Since there’s a category of license that doesn’t require legal presence and a SSN, verification of the [non-existant] SSN by the SSA … just isn’t part of the process. Simple, right?

[Zarniwoop]

Define “high error rate”. If you think it’s north of 75% I’ll laugh at you even more than usual.

https://www.e-verify.gov/sites/default/files/everify/data/FindingsEVerifyAccuracyEval2012.pdf

3. FINDINGS: ACCURACY OF E-VERIFY
Overall Findings
The erroneous TNC rate for E-Verify in FY 2009 was 0.3 percent and has been declining over time.
The erroneous TNC rate declined from 0.7 to 0.3 between April through June 2005 and April through June 2010.
The overall accuracy of E-Verify for employment-authorized workers, as measured by the FNC accuracy rate, was approximately 94 percent. It is estimated that 94 percent of FNCs were accurately issued to unauthorized workers and 6 percent were inaccurately issued to employment-authorized workers

TNC and FNC are “tentative” and “final nonconfirmation” rates, i.e. determinations that a worker isn’t authorized at various stages. Going by what the Court wrote, it’s earlier in the process, and sounds closer to a TNC (lots of those) versus a FNC (fewer, issued after more investigative steps). Error rates are also lower for citizens (unsurprising):

The erroneous TNC rate for U.S. citizens has decreased over time; however, the rate for noncitizens has not decreased. The erroneous TNC rate for U.S. citizens decreased from 0.6 percent in April through June 2005 to 0.2 percent in April through June 2010. The erroneous TNC rate for noncitizens in April through June 2005 was 1.5 percent, and in April through June 2010 it was 2.0 percent, with considerable fluctuations in the rates during the intermediate period.

It’s a fun report, quick read. Try it.

FFS Janitor Ed, is your spidey sense so bad that you can’t tell that something might be wrong when the Nunes family has practices that result in over 75% of the laborers being flagged?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Is Devin Nunes tired of winning -- or of being a Trumpy asshole with a degree in cow-milking -- yet?

[Hugo S. Cunningham]

Is Nunes going to interrogate all the Iowa cows to find out which one has been slandering him on the Internet? Or maybe he should send the whole lot to the knacker's.

[Litoky]

The summary judgment ruling rests on the undisputed fact that the alleged defamatory statements (that the Nunes' dairy operation employed undocumented workers) is objectively, verifiably true.
LOSER.

[Zarniwoop]

One might start to suspect that his frothy anti-immigrant rhetoric was merely performative grifting in service of chasing those sweet, sweet donations from the GQP base.

[Nelson]

Nunes? That towering paragon of virtue and integrity? LOL!

Yeah, seems pretty on-brand.

[Nige]

Or it's a great way make sure the huge numbers of undocumenteds who provide farm labour can't make noises about pay and conditions without risk of being arrested and deported.

[Zarniwoop]

“Both” certainly sounds like a pretty reasonable possibility with Nunes.

[Nige]

Yes, should have said 'and' not 'or.'