Young Kansas City Chiefs Fan’s (and Family’s) Defamation Lawsuit Against Deadspin Based on Blackface Allegations Can Go Forward
From yesterday’s by Delaware trial court Judge Sean Lugg in Armenta v. G/O Media, Inc.:
Deadspin published an image of a child displaying his passionate fandom as a backdrop for its critique of the NFL’s diversity efforts and, in its description of the child, crossed the fine line protecting its speech from defamation claims.
On November 26, 2023, the Armenta family, a mother, father, and their minor son, traveled from California to Las Vegas, Nevada to attend an NFL game between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs. To support his favorite team, H.A., the Armentas’ minor son, wore Native American headdress, painted his face black and red, and donned a Chiefs jersey. During the game, a television broadcast focused briefly on H.A. Soon afterwards, still images, or “screenshots,” of the television broadcast circulated online.
The following day, Deadspin published an article, with an accompanying screenshot, describing the boy as wearing “Black face” in a display of racial animus toward African Americans and “Native headdress” to display his hatred toward the Native American. The article further surmised that Raul and Shannon Armenta, H.A.’s parents, taught H.A. that hatred.
The court allowed the Armentas’ defamation claim against Deadspin to go forward:
Generally, statements labeling a person as racist are not actionable. “A term like racist, while exceptionally negative, insulting, and highly charged—is not actionable under defamation-type claims because it is a word that lacks precise meaning and can imply many different kinds of fact.” In Cousins, the Delaware Supreme Court explained that the defendant’s “personal view of what is racist” was not provably false and upheld the trial court’s dismissal of the defamation claim:
It cannot be denied America is in the midst of an ongoing national debate about what it means to be racist. To be sure, there is nearly universal agreement that some behaviors are racist: these include the use of racial slurs, the practicing of overt racial discrimination, and the commission of racially motivated violence…. But when a wider net is cast, this consensus quickly vanishes: it is clear to us that Americans disagree about a long and growing list of things that to some are racist and to others are not. It is not our role here to enter into this debate and decide who is right and who is wrong. In fact, we think that the First Amendment is clear that doing so would be the opposite of our role.
Deadspin argues that the statements alleging H.A. wore Black face are nonactionable for the same reasons that calling him racist would be non-actionable. {“Blackface is used to mock or ridicule Black people; it is cons
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