Case Overview
The Daily Caller was a defendant in a defamation claim, and Randazza Legal Group successfully defended the publication, securing an early dismissal with prejudice.
The case began when WPLG, a local news station in Miami-Dade County, Florida, reported on the arrest of a school teacher for sexual misconduct with a student. In a bizarre coincidence, another man with a nearly identical name was arrested by the same police department for a domestic violence offense on the same day. WPLG mixed up the mugshots of the two arrestees. Randazza Legal Group client, The Daily Caller picked up the story and The Daily Caller’s article naturally also contained the wrong mugshot.
The arrestee filed a defamation lawsuit against multiple news outlets, including The Daily Caller, for their stories. The Daily Caller filed a motion to dismiss on several grounds, including an assertion of the wire service defense. This defense immunizes news reporters for republishing news articles from reliable news sources, even if it later turns out the reporting was inaccurate and even if the initial news reporter issues a retraction or correction.
The court granted The Daily Caller’s motion to dismiss, finding that the allegedly defamatory mugshot was first published by WPLG, and since The Daily Caller relied on that publication, it could not be held liable.
