Indiana lawyer Mark K. Phillips has filed a libel and slander action against two media outlets, Nexstar Broadcasting Group and Mission Broadcasting, for mistakenly identifying him as a child molester. In 2011, Mark S. Birge, Phillips’ client, pleaded guilty to child molestation in an Indiana court. When the local news companies reported this story during the next two days, they mistakenly announced instead that Birge’s attorney, Mark Phillips, had been convicted of child molestation and would be sentenced to up to 16 years in prison. The media companies published a correction to the story over a month later, but Phillips filed suit anyway for slander per se, libel per se, and defamation. He seeks more than $1 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
Likely issues will include whether the lawyer is a “public figure” required to prove malice, the extent to which the media outlets are at fault for the mistaken report, and the legal effect of the subsequent correction.
Phillips asserts that the defendants are liable for defamation because they falsely identified him as the child molester knowing the statements to be false. As a result, he claims he “has suffered ridicule, damage to his
In addition, Phillips claims that the stories posted on the Internet amount to libel per se and the televised broadcasts to slander per se because the stories falsely (and with reckless disregard for the truth) claimed that he committed a crime of moral turpitude. He seeks both compensatory damages and punitive damages for the malice, fraud, and gross negligence committed in the course of this reporting.
The defendants removed the case to federal court and have yet to file an answer. Phillips is representing himself.