LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada Supreme Court on Thursday ended a defamation lawsuit brought by casino mogul Steve Wynn against The Associated Press in 2018, rejecting Wynn’s bid to get a jury to hear his claim that he was defamed by an AP story about accounts to Las Vegas police from two women who alleged he committed sexual misconduct.
The seven-member court upheld a February ruling by a three-judge panel citing state anti-SLAPP law, or “strategic lawsuits against public participation.” Nevada is among most states and the District of Columbia with statutes blocking lawsuits that are filed to intimidate or silence critics.
That ruling said anti-SLAPP statutes “were designed to limit precisely the type of claim at issue here, which involves a news organization publishing an article in a good faith effort to inform their readers regarding an issue of clear public interest.”
In what the unanimous court said Thursday was an effort to clarify the law, Justice Ron Parraguirre wrote that Wynn, as a public figure, needed to show “clear and convincing evidence to reasonably infer that the publication was made with actual malice.”