It’s hard to keep up with the cascade of libel suits now filling the courts. Usually the idea in a media law course is to focus only on the libel suits that are instructive or set a precedent of some kind. However, it’s also important to note current cases so that the context of the law is appreciated.\
Artificial intelligence cases — This is a new problem with a new technology, but even if expression by Google’s AI bot is protected by the First Amendment, it may still be liable for damaging falsehoods. The Journal of Free Speech Law has devoted a lot of ink to the issue, especially Vol.3 No. 2, 2023. The New York Times has an interesting Nov. 12, 2025 story, Who pays when AI is wrong?
Wolf River Electric v Google — A solar contractor in Minnesota noticed a sudden drop-off in business and realized that apparently false information was being spread through Google’s artificial intelligence chatbot. This is one of a half dozen cases that will attempt to define content that was not created by human beings as defamatory.
Walters v OpenAI — Nov. 21 — A Georgia state court granted a motion to dismiss a case brought by radio broadcaster Mark Walters against OpenAI, an artificial intelligence developer of ChatGPT. Walters alleged that ChatGPT had libeled him with false information about supposed financial fraud. In its decision, the court noted that the service uses a disclaimer: “ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts.” Walters also testified that he was not harmed by ChatGPT and that he had not contacted the service and asked it to withdraw the false information.
The Dominion – Fox cases – These are cases that stemmed from controversy over the outcome of the 2020 election and the Fox News network allegations about voting machines.
Dominion v Fox, 2023 — Although the Dominion v Fox case was settled on April 19, 2023, a few days before the trial began, another voting machine company libel suit continues. against Fox News, One America News Network and three Trump advisors.. The Dominion settlement came after Fox underestimated the strength of the case against them, according to a May 27, 2023 NY Times article.
The Smartmatic voting machine company is continuing its libel case against Fox over lies about election fraud in 2020. The allegation is that Fox and OANN aired a pattern of defamatory claims from Trump supporters about illegal manipulation of vote counts that threw the 2020 election to Joe Biden. Depositions have shown that Fox personalities did not believe the claims at the time they were aired. One Fox personality, Tucker Carlson, was forced to resign from Fox News due (in part) to the disgrace he brought onto the network. Another personality, Sean Hannity, claimed “journalistic privilege” to protect his sources. News Corp. (the Fox parent) also relied on previous cases defining “neutral reporting.”
Other interesting recent cases
Rebekah Vardy v Coleen Roony (UK case) 2022 – This is the “Wagatha Christie” case of UK tabloid fame, so-named because the two are “WAGs” (wives and girlfriends ) of famous UK football players and because it took investigation to get to the bottom of the cases (Therefore WAG combined with Agatha Christie). According to Wikipedia, the dispute began in 2019, when Rooney accused Vardy of leaking posts from her private Instagram account to the British newspaper The Sun. These supposedly private posts involved things like flooded basements and trips to Mexico. Roony was able to prove that Vardy had leaked the posts and was awarded about 1.5 million British pounds. Helen Lewis, a writer for The Atlantic, called it “the most ill-advised defamation case” since Oscar Wilde‘s dispute with the Marquess of Queensberry.
John Oliver lampoons coal boss Bob Murray’s libel suits
Johnny Depp v Amber Heard 2022 – A complicated “domestic” dispute in which two movie stars exposed their intimate lives to a world hungry for scandal. The case played out against a background of allegations and counter-allegations of physical and mental abuse. Depp won, so to speak, and Heard will end up paying Depp $1 million to settle the case. But really, both lost in the court of public opinion.
Robert E. Murray v John Oliver and HBO 2017 This is another one of those totally ill-advised libel suits. Coal baron Bob Murray sued John Oliver, asking the court for an injunction to stop a program in which Oliver was calling him a “geriatric Dr. Evil” who was “on the same side as black lung.” The courts tossed the suit (granted a pre-trial motion to dismiss by Oliver and HBO attorneys), as they did with over a dozen other defamation lawsuits brought by Murray against journalists and other critics of his operations, his company, and the coal industry.
Also see special section: Trump libel cases
Reconsidering libel law
Justice Clarence Thomas has called for re-evaluation of libel laws — “New York Times (v Sullivan, 1964 decision) and the court’s decisions extending it were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law,” Justice Thomas wrote in McKee v Cosby, 2019. “The States are perfectly capable of striking an acceptable balance between encouraging robust public discourse and providing a meaningful remedy for reputational harm,” Thomas said. (Subsequently, revelations about corrupt gifts and loans to Thomas have weakened his position on the court to the point where many have called for his resignation. )
In 2023, the court declined cert. and refused to hear an appeal by a West Virginia coal mine executive who claimed he was libeled when a number of news organizations reported that he was convicted of a felony for conspiring to thwart safety regulations that led to the deaths of 29 coal miners. In fact, it was a misdemeanor conviction and the executive served 364 days in jail. Conservatives later said that the case was not the best vehicle for overturning Sullivan anyway
In response to proposed changes in libel law, many First Amendment defenders see the national standard in Sullivan as crucial. “Before Sullivan, some states allowed libel plaintiffs to triumph even if the allegedly defamatory statement was proved true, so long as it was published with hostility toward the plaintiffs,” wrote Mark Joseph Stern in a February 2019 Slate magazine piece.
An additional issue, as noted earlier, is that under state laws, libel suits were often used to silence civil rights advocates in the American South before the NY Times v Sullivan case of 1964. In one typical example from South Carolina, a Black editor — John Henry McCray — was charged with criminal libel and forced to serve two months on a chain gang in 1954 for simply reporting the last words of a death-row inmate.
By 2o25 there were plenty of signs that the Supreme Court probably would not overturn the Sullivan decision. The New York Times noted that on Jan. 15, 2025, the court signaled that it is not ready to embrace Trump’s goal to “open up our libel laws” and overrule the Sullivan decision.
The signal, faint but unmistakable, came in a routine case on whether sales representatives were entitled to overtime. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh cited the Sullivan decision with seeming approval, noting that it had held that the Constitution insists that public officials suing for libel must prove their cases with clear and convincing evidence.
And in March, 2025, the court denied cert. to a case brought by a Las Vegas casino mogul who hoped to overturn Sullivan. And in April, 2025, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin lost a libel case against the New York Times. That case had once been seen as a potential vehicle for overturning Sullivan.
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Defamation and AI – Nov 12, 2025