Can I get a… trial?
A Los Angeles judge signaled Tuesday that Jay-Z’s defamation claim against high-profile attorney Tony Buzbee will overcome a legal challenge and be allowed to proceed to trial. In a tentative ruling and courtroom comments during a lengthy hearing, Judge Mark H. Epstein said he believed the question of whether Buzbee acted recklessly and with actual malice when he named Jay-Z as a defendant in a rape lawsuit last December had enough merit to move ahead.
The same judge also said he was leaning toward dismissing the rapper’s related extortion claim against Buzbee. At the end of the two-hour hearing, Judge Epstein declined to make a final ruling, saying he needed more time to digest the oral arguments from lawyers on both sides.
Jay-Z first sued Buzbee anonymously in November, claiming the Texas attorney was “shamelessly“ trying to extort him while representing dozens of plaintiffs with claims against indicted music mogul Sean Combs. Three weeks later, Buzbee filed an amended complaint on Dec. 8 that named Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, as the male celebrity who allegedly raped a 13-year-old girl alongside Combs at a New York City residence back in 2000. Carter immediately and vehemently denied the allegation and confirmed he was the John Doe who filed the extortion lawsuit. The Jane Doe behind the rape lawsuit went on to voluntarily dismiss her complaint with prejudice — meaning it can’t be filed again — on Feb. 14 after admitting there were inconsistencies in her story.
In his tentative ruling, Judge Epstein found that Carter had a basis to sue Buzbee for defamation after Buzbee referred to the Jane Doe as a “sexual assault survivor” in a social media post on Nov. 18, 2024 and then “liked” a post on X, formerly Twitter, one day later that speculated Carter was the John Doe assailant described in the rape lawsuit.
“When someone says Doe is Carter, and [Buzbee] ‘likes’ it, it’s not unreasonable to infer that [Buzbee] has just affirmed that he’s right, that Doe is Carter,” Judge Epstein told Buzbee’s lawyers in a courtroom in Santa Monica, Calif. He said the posts, taken together, created a triable issue of fact, and that Carter’s celebrity status as well as public interest in the case meant Carter had to prove “actual malice.” The judge said a lawyer’s failure to conduct a thorough investigation of a prospective client wouldn’t be enough on its own. But if a lawyer “expressly stated” that clients were being properly investigated and then a lawsuit was filed with an inferior investigation, that could create a different standard.
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“Not having done the investigation we’d all like one to do is not going to be enough to show actual malice, I know that. The concern I have is juxtaposing that with Mr. Buzbee’s statements that he was not going to bring a lawsuit until he had done a full investigation,” Judge Epstein said. “I agree this is the hardest question of the case, the ‘actual malice’ question. If you say, ‘I’m not going to name names until I’ve done real investigating,’ and then you name a name, isn’t the implication that you did conduct a real investigation? And if you didn’t, is it okay? Is actual malice still not satisfied when I’m telling the public, ‘I did a real investigation and this guy engaged in child rape,’ and actually, I didn’t?”
Judge Epstein said knocking out Carter’s extortion claim appeared to be an easier call. In his tentative ruling, he wrote that Buzbee’s two demand letters sent to Carter in November made “no promises to refrain from going to law enforcement” if Carter agreed to pay a settlement. “Selling silence as to law enforcement for money is extortion, but there is no promise of silence in the criminal context here. And selling silence for money in the civil context is not extortion; it is a settlement with a non-disclosure element,” he wrote. The next hearing in the case is set for March 26.
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In a sworn statement filed Feb. 10, Carter said it was no exaggeration that he viewed Buzbee’s promise to name him in the rape lawsuit if he didn’t mediate the dispute an “existential threat” to his reputation, career, and family.
“I felt that Mr. Buzbee was placing a gun to my head that I either bow to his demands or endure personal and financial ruin. His actions caused me mental anguish about the ticking time bomb and what it would do to me, my family, and my hard-earned reputation,” he wrote. “It was incredibly painful for my wife and me to sit down with our children, one of whom is at an age where her friends would surely see the press and ask questions about these claims, and explain this. I mourn this loss of innocence for my children, including one who is around the age that the female minor claims to have been when she falsely claims that these heinous acts happened. I am heartbroken that my children have to endure hearing these things about their father, especially at their young age.”
He claimed that after Buzbee went public with the “false accusations,” his company Roc Nation lost contracts worth $20 million per year. He also questioned the timing of the amended complaint filed Dec. 8.
“I was harshly criticized by others for accompanying my daughter to the premiere of her movie (Mufasa: The Lion King) a day after Mr. Buzbee filed the Jane Doe lawsuit against me. Media outlets reported that Disney was hesitant over my attendance at the premiere because of the accusations,” Carter said. “I feel that Mr. Buzbee purposely filed this lawsuit on the eve of my daughter’s premiere to put me in the position of having to choose between supporting my daughter or hiding to avoid the negative press coverage.”
