The first rule of Settlement Club is that you don’t talk about Settlement Club. And the second rule of Settlement Club — ah, heck, the first fifty rules of Settlement Club is that you don’t talk about settlements in lawsuits with mutual gag rules in place. Apparently that didn’t sink in at CNN or the Washington Post after both media outlets decided to quietly end the litigation brought by Nicholas Sandmann. Their employees went on social media attempting to spin the settlement and suggest that Sandmann only got a minimal payment to shut him up.
Big mistake, Sandmann attorney Lin Wood made clear almost immediately. “I know how to deal with liars,” Wood tweeted, and warned that new lawsuits would be filed unless “heads rolled” at both outlets:
This retweet by @brianstelter may have cost him his job at @CNN. It is called breach of confidentiality agreement. Brian Stelter is a liar. I know how to deal with liars. pic.twitter.com/1VHxby9gim
— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) July 27, 2020
This tweet by @AshaRangappa may have cost Ms. Rangappa her job at @CNN. It is called breach of confidentiality agreement. Asha Rangappa is a liar. I know how to deal with liars.
Heads are going to roll at CNN or @N1ckSandmann is going to filing another lawsuit & reveal truth. https://t.co/0NsN6wF40C
— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) July 27, 2020
This tweet by @MrDanZak may have cost him his job as a journalist at @washingtonpost It is called breach of confidentiality agreement. Dan Zak is a liar. I know how to deal with liars. pic.twitter.com/hIolaRx804
— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) July 27, 2020
This started with speculation that Sandmann had indeed gotten paid nothing more than “nuisance value.” Law & Crime wrote a pretty comprehensive overview of the social-media discussion of that premise after some attorneys unconnected to the case tried to read the tea leaves from various announcements in both cases. It’s worth reading, at least for the legal theories behind the speculation. That included a rather anodyne statement from Wood expressing his opinion that the speculation was “uninformed, errant nonsense,” but added that “questions about confidentiality and the timing of the settlement will have to be directed to others.” Wood didn’t threaten anyone over the speculation — because they were not party to the confidentiality agreement, and neither was Law & Crime.
That isn’t the case with Stelter, Rangappa, and Zak. They work for the respondents in these lawsuits and act as their agents. As soon as they published and expanded on the speculation, they characterized the settlement in terms their employer specifically agreed not to do. Not only does that open up new avenues for Sandmann against the Post and CNN, it might allow Wood to add the three as respondents in a new libel/defamation action.
Wood made it sound like that is a distinct possibility, and that the longer they remain employed, the stronger his new case against both outlets might be:
2020 could have just gotten much worse for CNN and WaPo. Let’s hope so. Let’s hope Wood can squeeze every nickel these lying, corrupt, leftist propaganda peddlers have out of their socialist fingers.