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.