A federal judge in Florida dismissed on Wednesday a pair of defamation lawsuits brought by Patrick Reed, who was seeking a total of $1 billion, against several golf media members and their employers. The legal actions were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled, as Reed and his legal team had previously been allowed to do.
“While Reed may be frustrated at the negative media coverage he receives (some of which seems over the top),” U.S. District Court Judge Timothy J. Corrigan wrote in a 78-page ruling, “under Florida law and the First Amendment, Reed fails to bring actionable defamation claims and his cases therefore must be dismissed.”
Reed, the Masters winner in 2018 who defected last year from the PGA Tour to LIV, had initially filed a $750 million lawsuit later in 2022 against Golf Channel and one of its analysts, Brandel Chamblee. Reed alleged that they had “actively targeted” him for many years to get “'clicks,' viewership, ratings and increased revenue,” and subsequently to support the PGA Tour and DP World Tour by maligning him and other LIV golfers. Reed’s lawyers then refiled the lawsuit to change the venue from Texas to Florida, at which point they added Golf Channel analysts Damon Hack and Shane Bacon, as well as Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch, the New Yorker’s Zach Helfand, Condé Nast and Gannett Co.
The second lawsuit, referred to by Corrigan as “Reed II” to distinguish it from “Reed I,” named as defendants Shane Ryan, Doug Ferguson, Gavin Newsham and Erik Larson, as well as the golf writers’ respective platforms or publishers: Hachette Book Group, the Associated Press, the New York Post, Fox Sports and Bloomberg. “Reed I” largely concerned itself with statements made about LIV and its backing by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. “Reed II” delved more into the defendants’ written or spoken comments about various controversial moments in Reed’s playing career, including issues he had while on college teams, a two-stroke penalty he incurred during the 2019 Hero World Challenge and a free drop he was given during the 2021 Farmers Insurance Open. In that filing, Reed requested damages of at least $250 million.
In both cases, Reed contended that the analysts’ remarks had, among other alleged harms, created a “hostile work environment” and cost him “multiple multimillion dollar sponsorship deals.” Both filings also listed insults hurled at Reed from fans that he said were “induced” by the analysts and writers, including, among others: “Now on the tee the excavator!,” “You suck!,” “You f… ing suck!,” “You jackass!,” “You coward!,” “Shovel!,” Why don’t you dig a grave and bury yourself in it!,” “You piece of [expletive]!,” “No one likes you!,” Everyone hates you Reed!,” and “Good luck digging yourself out of this one!”
The statements from the writers and analysts that Reed’s two lawsuits described as defamatory numbered over four dozen, but Corrigan wrote that many of them were “not about Reed” and some constituted “matters of opinion or permissible rhetorical hyperbole.” Other listed statements were factual in nature, the truth of which were “not challenged” by Reed, according to the judge, who added he did “not meet the required pleading of actual malice to hold the press liable for defamation.”
In all, Corrigan found just one of the statements listed to be “potentially defamatory.” That was from a story written by Newsham and published last year by Fox Sports and the New York Post, which included this passage: “When items including a watch, a putter and $400 went missing from the locker room, [college] teammates suspected it was Reed who had taken them, especially as he turned up the following day with a large wad of cash.” Noting that Reed asserted his teammates never made those accusations, the judge wrote that could make the passage’s inclusion “potentially actionable,” even though the New York Post argued that it derived from a book Ryan wrote in 2015. However, Corrigan said that Reed failed to prove that the media platforms or the publisher acted in a way that met the legal definition of malice.
Corrigan wrote that he was dismissing the lawsuits with prejudice in part because in previous opportunities to amend them, Reed had changed very little and “continued to assert the same alleged defamatory statements” without addressing “deficiencies” the judge had pointed out. Corrigan also wrote that allowing further amendments “would be fruitless” because all but one of the statements could not be considered defamatory.
“The Court has no role in determining whether some of the coverage of Reed is unfair or excessive,” wrote the judge. “Rather, the Court bases its ruling on Florida defamation law and the First Amendment. This means the cases must end here.”
