10/12 – Including a plaintiff’s response to allegedly defamatory statements in an article has led to an early dismissal for failure to plead negligence in a recent defamation case filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas against the firm’s client, The Independent. In Heritage Ministries v. Independent Digital News & Media, Ltd., a conservative religious community in Texas sued The Independent for defamation based on an article about former Heritage members who left the community following traumatic birth experiences facilitated by the church’s midwife. Heritage claimed it was defamed by several statements in the article and that the article did not include Heritage’s responses to some of the allegations. The court, however, dismissed the Complaint after finding Heritage failed to sufficiently plead fault. Without concluding whether Heritage was a public figure, the court found that Heritage had not alleged that The Independent had been negligent in publishing the article. Specifically, the court found that Heritage’s claim that its responses were not included was “plainly false” and highlighted the multiple statements and denials from Heritage quoted in the article. Thus, the court concluded that the “comprehensive inclusion of Heritage’s responses demonstrates that Defendant exercised reasonable care in its reporting” and therefore Heritage had failed to plausibly allege the fault required to maintain a claim for defamation.