Trial of Mann v. Steyn: Post-Trial Motions Edition
16th March 2025
Worth reading the whole thing, but BLUF:
So the contours of the “final judgment” in this case are coming into view. Mann will be awarded $1001 against Simberg, and $5001 against Steyn. NR will be awarded $530,000 against Mann, and Simberg and Steyn will be awarded some additional tens of thousands from Mann. Mann will be in a very substantial financial hole, with the defendants having little incentive to compromise with him, and every incentive to go after his bank accounts and his house. Probably, Mann will be able to stave that off for some substantial period of time by means of appeals. Or perhaps Mann’s angel funders, who have paid for this case on his behalf and never had their identities disclosed, will pay off the judgment for him. Publicly, Mann will go forth continuing to claim that he “won” the case by virtue of the jury verdicts.
For me the most disappointing aspect of the whole case has been the total inability of the court system to deal with Mann’s fake science. As described in detail in my post from February 6, 2024, the defendants, particularly Simberg, put on substantial and indeed definitive evidence of the flawed “science” in Mann’s Hockey Stick reconstructions — manipulation of data, incorrect error bands, suppression of adverse verification statistics, and so forth. Mann did not even feel the need to put on any scientific evidence in response. His lawyer completely ignored this entire issue on their rebuttal case, and then did not even mention it in closing argument. And yet, the jury still made an award against the defendants. The whole issue of the fake science went completely over their heads.
The most fitting end to this case will be when whoever in the federal government pays for the University of Pennsylvania “climate science” centers pulls the plug on all the funding. That can’t come soon enough.