https://www.thedp.com/article/2025/03/penn-michael-mann-sanctioned-judge-defamation-trial
In February 2024, Mann — Penn’s vice provost for climate science, policy, and action — was awarded more than $1 million in the suit against bloggers Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn. The case argued that Simberg, a former adjunct fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Steyn, a contributor to the National Review, had defamed him in a series of blog posts discrediting his climate change research in 2012.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Alfred S. Irving Jr. called disparities in the case “an affront to the Court’s authority” and sanctioned Mann and his legal team “for bad-faith trial misconduct.” Irving also threw out the penalty owed by Steyn earlier this month and reduced the damages to $5,000, stating that the verdict against Steyn was “grossly excessive.”During the trial, Mann’s legal team presented a chart listing a grant that Mann allegedly lost due to the defamatory remarks as $9.7 million. However, in a separate testimony, Mann stated the grant was worth $112,000. Comparing Mann’s grant income before and after the accusations from Simberg and Steyn, Mann’s lawyers initially claimed a disparity of $2.8 million, while a corrected calculation put it the difference at $2.37 million.
