Nebraska social media influencers lose lawsuits in back-to-back rulings

This week, Senior U.S. District Judge Joseph Bataillon granted MSNBC's parent company, NBCUniversal Media's, motion to dismiss the case Brandon Straka brought against them.

Less than two weeks earlier, U.S. District Judge Brian Buescher did the same with the lawsuit filed by Katie Starks against TULA Life Inc., a former sponsor of her blog who severed ties with her after she posted videos criticizing mask mandates, which prompted commenters to compare wearing them to the Holocaust.

In a lawsuit filed in December, Straka, a pro-Trump social media figure charged after encouraging rioters to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, had targeted five statements made by political commentator Chris Hayes and chief legal correspondent for MSNBC Ari Melber that he alleged defamed him and put him in a false light.

At the time, Straka called the Nebraska case the first in a string of strategic lawsuits he would be issuing in the coming months.

"I'm fighting for every American citizen, regardless of political affiliation, against an establishment that has turned on the American people," he said then in a post.

Straka, who got home detention and probation for his conduct, was seeking $25 million in the case filed by Virginia attorney Steven Biss, who previously represented former Congressman Devin Nunes and Russian academic Svetlana Lokhova in failed defamation lawsuits against CNN, the Washington Post and others over reports involving former President Trump's first impeachment inquiry.

Earlier this year, Straka voluntarily dismissed Hayes and Melber, but continued with the case against NBCUniversal Media.

Then, in a decision this week in Straka's case, the judge dismissed them, too, saying whatever differences there were between the reports, which said Straka had stormed the Capitol, and his conduct amounted to "semantic hair-splitting."

"The material challenged in the plaintiff’s complaint cannot be understood by a reasonable person as anything but substantially, if not literally, true. The differences between the statements NBC Universal published on cable television programs and the admissions Straka made in his criminal case are slight if not nonexistent," Bataillon wrote.

He said Straka's assertion that the on-air statements by Hayes and Melber were false were entirely contradicted by the factual basis of his guilty plea.

In Starks' case, filed in January, the lifestyle blogger sued TULA Life, a skincare corporation, for misattributing the comments comparing mask mandates with the Holocaust to her and indirectly labeling her "a racist."

But, in his ruling in late July, the judge said the statements TULA put out after her video simply stated that the company has "zero tolerance for racism or hate within (TULA’s) community" and ceased its partnership with her because of it.

Buescher said the statements do not hint at specific conduct committed by Starks, but were primarily about TULA and its policies.

"TULA’s two statements are not susceptible to verification as true or false. Rather, they merely express TULA’s 'subjective impressions' of Starks. Accordingly, the First Amendment bars Starks’ defamation claim," he said in dismissing the case.

Starks' California attorney, Roger Roots, argued TULA had violated his client's right to free speech by terminating the influencer agreement early.

But Buescher shot down the claim, saying Starks had injected herself in a public debate about COVID-19 policies and school mask mandates and encouraged others "to stand up to mask mandates and to stop financially supporting business(es) that would not take such a stand," which made her the subject of adverse publicity. So TULA had a right to terminate their agreement under the contract.