Roy Moore’s $8 Million Defamation Award Reversed on Appeal (2)

Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore failed to adequately prove a political ad defamed him during his 2017 US Senate campaign through references to news reports alleging he committed sexual misconduct involving underage girls, a federal appeals court found.

A three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on Friday reversed a lower court jury verdict in Moore’s favor in his lawsuit against the Senate Majority PAC. The jury awarded him $8.2 million in damages in 2022.

The appeals court sided with the Senate Majority PAC, which asked the lower court to set aside the jury verdict and grant it judgment as a matter of law. Moore failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the PAC acted with actual malice in running false campaign ads against him, the standard required for a public figure to win a defamation claim, Judge Elizabeth L. Branch wrote for the Eleventh Circuit panel.

Moore filed at least three other federal lawsuits alleging defamation related to the 2017 reports and lost each of them, including one at the Eleventh Circuit against Washington Examiner writers and one at the Second Circuit against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

The sexual misconduct allegations originated with a Washington Post article in November 2017. They grew with more reports from other news outlets in which nine women accused Moore of sexual misconduct decades earlier, when they were teenagers and he was a lawyer in his 30s in the Etowah County, Ala., district attorney’s office.

Moore is considering a petition for review at the Supreme Court, where at least three justices have expressed interest in revisiting the burden of proving actual malice that has evolved through case law, said Jeffrey Wittenbrink, a Baton Rouge attorney representing Moore. Seeking review from the full Eleventh Circuit is also an option.

“The conventional wisdom is that a public figure can’t hardly get a judgment for defamation,” he said, adding the trial jury nevertheless ruled in Moore’s favor on the actual malice question.

The Eleventh Circuit appeal centered on an implied claim in the Senate Majority PAC’s television ad that Moore solicited sex from a 14-year-old girl who was working as a Santa’s helper at the Gadsden, Ala., mall. Moore argued that claim hadn’t been alleged in any of the news reports and that he had presented evidence at trial to dispute it, saying he told the girl she was pretty but didn’t solicit sex from her.

The political committee argued that was an unintentional implication resulting from imprecise phrasing, but that the PAC’s overall fact-checking efforts showed its commitment to making true statements. It also said the claim didn’t change the overall gist of the allegations facing Moore, who was publicly accused of preying on multiple underage girls and initiating sexual contact with a different 14-year-old.

Moore argued the specificity of the claim about the 14-year-old Santa’s helper went beyond the news reports and led viewers to believe it was a credible, verifiable claim linked to the allegations that Moore was banned from the mall.

Moore had retired from the Alabama Supreme Court in 2017 after being suspended for telling Alabama judges not to adhere to the US Supreme Court’s decision declaring same-sex marriage legal. He was previously removed as chief justice in 2003 for refusing to take down a Ten Commandments monument from the court building.

“This ruling is a total vindication of Senate Majority PAC and a complete repudiation of Roy Moore’s pathetic seven-year effort to weaponize the courts to launder what little remains of his reputation,” said Elias Law Group partner Ezra Reese. “Senate Majority PAC ran an advertisement that cited accurate reporting from major national news outlets detailing the women who bravely came forward with allegations about Moore’s inappropriate conduct.”

Judges Frank M. Hull and Jill A. Pryor joined Branch in Friday’s opinion.

Attorneys from Elias Law Group and Dominick Feld Hyde PC represented the Senate Majority PAC.

Attorneys from Moore’s legal group Foundation for Moral Law and Wittenbrink Law Firm represented Moore.

The case is Moore v. Senate Majority PAC, 11th Cir., No. 23-13531, 4/24/26.