Iranian American Forum reminder: In 2008 NIAC filed a defamation lawsuit against one of its critics to silence him. In 2012 the court dismissed the case and punished NIAC and its president, Trita Parsi, for lying to the court, withholding and concealing documents and other abuses. (report and court documents)

 ———————————————

Hamid Yazdan Panah, April 27, 2014

The roots of NIAC’s lawsuit can be traced back to Hassan Daioleslam’s articles on NIAC beginning in 2007. These articles focused on the role that NIAC had played in lobbying to remove sanctions on the Iranian regime.

Subsequently, NIAC filed suit against Daioleslam under the legal theory of defamation. Defamation basically means the spreading of false statements which hurt the character of an individual or organization. In this case NIAC claimed that Daioleslam’s statements were false.

Under defamation law, there is a different standard for private and public individuals. A private citizen has a lower burden in a defamation case, and must simply show that the statements made were untrue and that they cause him some form of damage. A public person (like a politician or businessman) cannot base a lawsuit only on incorrect harmful statements unless there is proof that the writer or publisher acted with actual malice (knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth).

In this case Trita Parsi was in fact a public person, and thus was required by the court to meet a  higher burden than a normal citizen. This is a crucial point in understanding what the lawsuit was about, and what needed to be proven in court.

By law, NIAC needed to show that Daioleslam acted with malice in regards to the accusations. Having failed to meet this requirement, the suit was dismissed. There were no other legal determinations made by the court in this case. The court did not have a mandate to determine whether or not NIAC was in fact a Lobby, nor did it rule on whether or not Daioleslam’s statements were factual.

Unfortunately NIAC distorted the court ruling, and claimed the judge made rulings in its favor, which is simply not true.  In a press release it claimed that it had achieved its major goal in the suit, which was to prove the falsity of Daioleslam’s claims, stating:

“On this crucial issue, NIAC prevailed. Once in front of the court, Daioleslam had the opportunity to make his case for the truth. Instead, he changed his tune and did not seek to argue that his accusations were correct and truthful.”

Either NIAC or its attorneys are truly ignorant of the law (a real possibility evidenced by their sloppy legal work) or this is a bold faced distortion of the legal opinion. Daioleslam’s did not need to prove the that his statements were true, as was previously mentioned, the burden in the suit was on NIAC to prove the statements were false and were stated with malice.

NIAC’s press release distorts the reality of the proceedings and places an assumed burden on Daioleslam that simply did not exist in the proceeding. Daioleslam did not “change his tune”, but in fact maintained his view that Trita Parsi was a lobbyist for the Iranian regime.

Daioleslam neither initiated this legal claim, nor did he go to court hoping to obtain a ruling as to whether his articles are in fact truthful or not. As a journalist his work speaks for itself, and meets both editorial and scholarly standards, a fact noted by the court in their opinion. Secondly, and most importantly, Daioleslam explicitly maintains that he has not changed his views in regards to NIAC;

“The Defendant properly pled and supported his allegation that he believes that his analysis of the Plaintiffs’ position is accurate. See Def. Motion to Dismiss, pp. 19-27; Afft. of Defendant at 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13”

NIAC tries to back up this assertion with the following quote from Judge’s opinion: “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as a finding that defendant’s articles were true. Defendant did not move for summary judgment on that ground.”

This quote comes from a footnote in the opinion, and is not a legal finding, but what is commonly referred to as “dicta”, which is a statement of opinion or belief, but not a legal conclusion or ruling. More importantly, the statement was meant as a disclaimer stating that the court did not make a judgment as to the claims being either true or false. This was merely a clarification by the Judge in regards to the scope of the opinion, not a legal conclusion in favor of NIAC, despite their desperate attempts to cast it as such.

Daioleslam’s legal team made a strategic decision to focus on the fact that NIAC utterly failed to meet their own burden, and thus failed to uphold the minimum requirements of such a lawsuit. Daioleslam’s legal team filed a motion for “summary judgement”, which is basically a request to the court to resolve the matter quickly and easily, as facts of the case leave no room for dispute. If summary judgement is granted, it is usually a sign that the case is very one sided. Obviously their decision to pursue this strategy was correct as their motion for summary judgement was granted and the suit was dismissed.

Hamid Yazdan Panah is an Iranian-American human rights activist and attorney focused on immigration and asylum in the San Francisco Bay Area.