DISCLAIMER: Any unofficial case summaries below are prepared by the clerk's office
as a courtesy to the reader. They are not part of the opinion of the court.
202710P.pdf 09/15/2021 Devin Nunes v. Ryan Lizza
U.S. Court of Appeals Case No: 20-2710
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa - Western
[PUBLISHED] [Colloton, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Erickson,
Circuit Judge]
Civil case. The district court did not err in dismissing Representative
Nunes's claim for express defamation against defendants as the complaint
fails to state a claim for express defamation based on two statements in
an article regarding alleged improper use of his position as Chairman of
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; with respect to
plaintiffs' claim for defamation by implication, the district court erred
in dismissing that claim as the complaint plausibly alleges that a
reasonable reader could draw the implication that Representative Nunes
conspired to hide his parents' farm's use of undocumented labor; further,
the manner in which the article presented the issue permits a plausible
inference that defendants intended or endorsed the implication and the
complaint, therefore, states a plausible claim for defamation by
implication; finally, the pleaded facts were suggestive enough to render
it plausible that the author, by tweeting about the article after the suit
was filed, engaged in purposeful avoidance of the truth and acted with
actual malice.