By Bob Walsh
Anybody who follows the news at all will remember a couple years back that Rolling Stone published the story of a gang rape in a frat house at the University of Virginia. Unfortunately for Rolling Stone the story was pretty much a total fabrication and they took zero steps to do ANY fact checking before publishing the story. (For instance, there was in fact no party of any kind at the frat house in question on the day in question.)
The alleged victim, “Jackie”, was forced to answer questions under oath earlier this year, though that testimony has been put under seal.
Nicole Eramo, who is an administrator at the university, counselled Jackie after the alleged rape. Eramo’s attorneys are alleging that the Rolling Stone story falsely painted her in a bad light and are suing for defamation to the tune of $7.85 million. The case is about to come to the jury and that jury may hear “Jackie” speak in person, though they may also merely view the videotaped deposition.
Rolling Stone officially retracted the story in April of 2015, five months after it was published.
A judge threw out one civil suit filed by three of the fraternity brothers, but the case filed by the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity for $25 million against Rolling Stone is scheduled for trial next year.
Eramo’s suit may hinge on whether or not the author, Sabrina Erdley and the publisher, Rolling Stone, acted with actual malice. A judge has ruled that Eramo is in fact a “public figure” and she must therefore prove not only that the story was false and defamatory but that the publisher KNEW it was or at least should have reasonably known it was and proceeded to publish anyway. That is a very high bar to clear.
It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.
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