The Washington, D.C. Superior Court’s May 22, 2025 ruling against Michael Mann is the latest in a series of defeats for the climate scientist’s prolonged legal offensive against his critics. Judge Alfred S. Irving ordered Mann to pay $477,350.80 in attorney’s fees and related costs to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and Rand Simberg, following their successful partial dismissal of claims under the District’s Anti-SLAPP Act.

This judgment comes just months after a separate ruling ordered Mann to pay $540,820.21 to National Review. Together, the two awards raise Mann’s current liability to over $1.1 million—a staggering total for a campaign that began over a decade ago with the aim of silencing dissent through strategic litigation.

Mann’s lawsuit, filed in 2012, named CEI, Simberg, National Review, and Mark Steyn as defendants over criticism of his scientific work, specifically the “hockey stick” graph that catapulted him to fame in climate policy circles. From the beginning, Mann positioned the suit as a defense of science against ideological attack. The courts have increasingly seen it otherwise.

In the May ruling, the court rejected Mann’s argument that success on appeal doesn’t qualify as a victory for fee recovery. The judge noted that CEI and Simberg’s appellate success not only resulted in dismissal of two claims—including an emotional distress count—but also changed the practical scope of litigation. CEI, for example, avoided discovery and litigation over its own statements, limiting the remaining case to vicarious liability claims for Simberg’s blog post.

The judgment also reflects judicial skepticism toward Mann’s insistence that his litigation strategy was justified. The court ruled there were no “special circumstances” that would make a fee award unjust. It found CEI and Simberg’s legal fees reasonable, subject to only modest adjustments. These included a $4,428.50 reduction for charges above standard Laffey Matrix rates and $1,535 removed for non-litigation-related activities, such as responding to press inquiries and participating in a Cato Institute event.

A 20% across-the-board reduction was also applied to reflect the partial nature of the anti-SLAPP success. The court awarded an additional $35,951.60 for “fees on fees”—expenses incurred in the process of recovering attorney’s fees. That figure too was discounted proportionally.

This ruling follows the court’s earlier decision in January to award $540,820.21 in fees to National Review. As detailed in Minding the Campus, the court dismissed significant parts of Mann’s claims and found National Review entitled to recover costs under the same statute. That decision similarly highlighted the ineffectiveness of Mann’s strategy, reinforcing that partial victories in speech-related litigation still entitle defendants to reimbursement when key claims are thrown out.

The cumulative picture is increasingly clear. Mann’s legal actions, originally cast as a principled stand against defamation, now appear more like an extended attempt to chill public discourse around climate science. The irony is that the lawsuits have produced not vindication, but growing financial liability, mounting judicial criticism, and a narrowing of the legal issues in his favor.

For CEI, Simberg, National Review, and Mark Steyn—whose $1 million jury verdict was recently slashed to just $5,000—these outcomes signal more than financial recovery. They reflect a turning tide in the battle over who controls scientific debate in the public square. Courts are signaling that disagreement, even sharp criticism, is not defamation—and certainly not actionable when protected by the First Amendment.

As for Mann, the tally keeps rising. What began as an effort to impose reputational costs on his critics has resulted in real financial ones for himself. And the legal system, after years of attrition, is slowly but unmistakably ruling that criticism—especially in matters of public policy—is not a crime, but a right.

Today’s verdict:

Other recent WUWT articles on this neverending case.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/18/help-a-mann-out/

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/06/manns-dc-trick/

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/03/mark-steyn-and-the-reversal-of-fortune/

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/03/16/trial-of-mann-v-steyn-post-trial-motions-edition/

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/03/12/breaking-judge-sanctions-michael-e-mann-for-bad-faith-trial-misconduct-in-mann-v-free-speech/

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/03/04/a-victory-for-free-speech-mark-steyns-1-million-judgment-slashed-to-5000-in-landmark-climate-case/

NYT Laments Climate Data Cuts: Two Quotes Expose the Divide in the Climate War

From THE MANHATTAN CONTRIAN

Francis Menton

Over at the New York Times today, print edition, there is a big front page article documenting how their side is losing the latest battle in the climate wars. The headline is “U.S. Embraces Climate Denial In Science Cuts.” (online headline somewhat different). Also in the Times today (online version) is a feature called “Quote of the Day.” Today’s “quote of the day,” as selected by the Times, is taken from the “climate denial” article just previously linked. Here it is:

“It’s as if we’re in the Dark Ages.”

This quote is attributed to one Rachel Cleetus, identified as senior policy director with the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

But then, if you take some time to read the article, you come to what I would propose as another excellent candidate for quote of the day. It’s from Brooke Rollins, recently confirmed as the new Secretary of Agriculture in the Trump administration. Here it is:

“We’re not doing that climate change, you know, crud, anymore.”

The focus of the article is what the Times calls “getting rid of data.” In Times spin, the purpose is to “halt the national discussion about how to deal with global warming.” But what kind of “data” are we talking about here? The article is short on specifics as to which exact data series are being cut back or eliminated, let alone whether those series are accurate or useful. But there is enough to give you a general idea:

In recent weeks, more than 500 people have left the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the government’s premier agency for climate and weather science. . . . NOAA also stopped monthly briefing calls on climate change, and the president’s proposed budget would eliminate funding for the agency’s weather and climate research. The administration has purged the phrases “climate crisis” and “climate science” from government websites.

Ah, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). They’re the people who, via their branch called NCEI, put out the so-called “surface temperature” series that have been systematically altered to create a falsely-enhanced warming trend to support regular claims of “warmest day/month/year ever.” This is the subject of my now 33-part series “The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time.”

Let me remind you of the basics of the temperature-alteration scam: (1) the surface temperature records as presented by NOAA/NCEI are not raw instrumental data, but rather have been altered, (2) NOAA admits that it alters the records, (3) NOAA gives seemingly-plausible reasons for altering the records (e.g., to account to station moves and instrument changes), (4) however, the alterations as implemented are not associated with any specific issues like station moves and instrument changes, and (5) the alterations systematically enhance the reported warming trend and are used to support the “climate crisis” narrative. For more detail, go to Part XXXIII of the “Greatest Scientific Fraud” series. Here are just a couple of backup points in case you are skeptical:

• As to whether NOAA alters the raw data, from ABC News, February 25, 2025, “Yes, NOAA adjusts its historical weather data: Here’s why.” Excerpt: “When digging into conspiracies claiming that the federal agency “manipulates” its historical weather data, ABC News chief meteorologist and chief climate correspondent Ginger Zee was able to confirm that it was true — but that the routine, public adjustments to records happen for good reason. . . . NCEI [a branch of NOAA] adjusts weather data to account for factors like instrument changes, station relocation and urbanization, and it does so through peer-reviewed studies that are published through its federal website.”
• As to whether the data alterations implemented by NOAA/NCEI can be tied to any specific legitimate bases like station moves or instrumentation changes, I cite a 2022 article by O’Neill, et al. (17 co-authors) from the journal Atmosphere, title “Evaluation of the Homogenization Adjustments Applied to European Temperature Records in the Global Historical Climatology Network Dataset.” I couldn’t get a pithy quote from the article, but here is my summary: “[The authors attempt] to reverse-engineer the adjustments to figure out what NCEI is doing, and particularly whether NCEI is validly identifying station discontinuities, such as moves or instrumentation changes, that might give rise to valid adjustments. The bottom line is that the adjusters make no attempt to tie adjustments to any specific event that would give rise to legitimate homogenization, and that many of the alterations appear ridiculous and completely beyond justification. . . .” There is much, much more detail if you follow the links.

It is not clear from the Times article whether the 500 recent departures from NOAA include the people who have been carrying out this temperature alteration scam. If those people aren’t gone yet, with any luck they will be soon; and maybe we’ll even get some details of how they have been practicing their dark arts.

Meanwhile, back in the world of climate reality, the Real Clear Foundation on Monday (May 19) held something they called the “Energy Future Forum.” Conference co-chairs David DesRosiers and Mark Mills gave opening key-notes. Kevin Killough of Just the News published a summary of the conference on May 20. From DesRosiers’ remarks:

“I think we’ve gone from scarcity to abundance — from the green gospel of scarcity and its Trinitarian ESG god — to the promised land of abundance guided by the values of affordability and reliability,” David DesRosiers, conference co-chair and founder of the RealClear Foundation, said. 

And from Mills:

While many tech companies, such as Microsoft, embraced net-zero goals, Mills explained that the energy demands of data centers forced companies to contend with the reality that although fashionable in some circles, intermittent wind and solar power are not adequate.  “Eventually, reality rears its ugly head, and we recalibrate around what reality permits,” Mills said. 

Bottom line: the Times can scream all it wants, but the world is moving on. From my point of view, it can’t happen too fast.