Shannon Sharpe Defeats Brett Favre’s Appeal in Defamation Suit

Brett Favre lost his appeal in a suit conteding that fellow NFL Hall of Famer and television host Shannon Sharpe defamed Favre by saying he stole funds from a government program for the poor.

“At the time Sharpe made the statements, the facts on which he was relying were publicly known, and Sharpe had a right to characterize those publicly known facts caustically and unfairly,” Judge Leslie H. Southwick said, for the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. “Sharpe’s statements were his ‘strongly stated’ opinions ‘based on truthful established fact[s],’ and thus nonactionable.”

The Fifth Circuit affirmed a ...