The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge from Roy Moore, the former Alabama Supreme Court justice, to an appeals court ruling that wiped out a multimillion-dollar defamation verdict over a 2017 campaign ad recounting sexual misconduct allegations against him.
The decision effectively brings an end to Moore’s long-running legal fight against Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic-aligned political action committee.
The justices also rejected, without explanation, his emergency appeal earlier this year asking the court to review the lower court’s order.
At the heart of the dispute were television commercials aired by Highway 31, a group backed by Senate Majority PAC, during a 2017 special election. The ads suggested Moore had been banned from a local mall for soliciting sex from teenage girls.
The commercials cited news reports detailing accusations of sexual misconduct from several women. One woman claimed Moore initiated a sexual encounter with her when she was 14 and he was in his 30s.
Moore has denied the allegations.
At the time, Moore was running as the Republican nominee for the Senate seat previously held by former Sen. Jeff Sessions. He ultimately lost the race to Democrat Doug Jones.
Moore went on to sue the PAC and several others for defamation and invasion of privacy, arguing the commercials were misleading and falsely implied he had solicited sex from a 14-year-old.
An Alabama jury initially sided with Moore in 2022, awarding him $8.2 million.
But a three-judge panel on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later reversed that verdict, finding Moore had failed to meet the “actual malice” standard established by the landmark case New York Times v. Sullivan.
Under that standard, public figures who sue for defamation must prove the publisher knew a statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
Moore’s legal team urged the Supreme Court to take another look at the case, warning that the stakes reached well beyond their client.
“The repercussions extend far beyond this case,” the lawyers wrote in their petition.
They argued that today’s political advertising relies heavily on pieced-together excerpts of statements, and that the appeals court’s reasoning could allow publishers to dodge accountability.
“Modern political ads are built from excerpts of statements. If a publisher can escape a jury’s verdict by accurately quoting each fragment while manufacturing a false whole, Masson’s core holding is nullified for the very media where fabrication is easiest and most damaging,” Moore’s lawyers wrote.
The reference was to a 1991 Supreme Court precedent holding that deliberately altering a direct quote does not amount to defamation unless the alteration changes the factual meaning.
Senate Majority PAC did not file a response to Moore’s petition.
With the high court declining to step in, the 11th Circuit’s ruling stands, leaving the former Alabama judge without the $8.2 million a jury once awarded him and closing the book on a legal saga that grew out of one of the most closely watched Senate races of 2017.
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