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California Appeals Court Revives Discrimination Lawsuit Against CNN
California Appeals Court Revives Discrimination Lawsuit Against CNN
On Tuesday, a California appellate court held that "the press has no special immunity" from employment laws, and reversing a lower court, allowed former CNN producer Stanley Wilson to move forward in a lawsuit claiming the cable news network subjected to him to discrimination, retaliation and defamation.The proposition that a media outlet can't discriminate on the basis of race, age or disability might seem obvious, but Wilson's lawsuit triggered a move by CNN that would later gain support from CBS, NBCU, Fox, the Los Angeles Times and the California Newspaper Publishers Association. At issue is the circumstances when a news organization's decisions are acts in furtherance of its exercise of the constitutional right of free speech in connection with a public issue.
Under California's anti-SLAPP statute, if a media company is being hauled into court for protected activity, a person asserting a legal claim bears the burden of demonstrating a probability of prevailing before the case proceeds.In his 2014 lawsuit, Wilson said he was a 51-year-old African- and Latino-American who worked for CNN from 1996 through the first month of 2014. An Emmy Award winner, he was fired after being accused of plagiarism in connection with a story about the retirement of Los Angeles County sheriff Lee Baca. Wilson contends this was just a pretext and that the real reasons were discriminatory in nature. He alleges he was replaced by a less-experienced Caucasion under the age of 40 and was unable to find work in broadcast journalism after CNN purposely published knowingly false statements accusing him of dishonesty in his profession.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” former vice president Biden said during a campaign event in Texas on Monday. "All men and women created by — you know, you know, the thing.”