UPDATE: DC Appeals Court Upholds Dumping Birther's Defamation Suit Against Esquire

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The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last week in Farah et al. v. Esquire Magazine (Case No. 12-7055) upheld a lower court decision granting summary judgment to Esquire Magazine in a defamation suit brought by the author and publisher of a book questioning the U.S. citizenship of President Barack Obama.

Writing for the appellate court, Judge Judith W. Rogers said a post by Esquire that offended publisher Joseph Farah and author Jerome Corsi was protected political satire. Reasonable readers of the defendant's Politics Blog would not take the article as factual, the court ruled.

"Satire," Judge Rogers wrote, "is effective as social commentary precisely because it is often grounded in truth." United States District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Rosemary Collyer last year dismissed the plaintiffs' lawsuit, finding they had failed to state a claim (see "TUOL" post 6/7/12).

The appellate court ruling did not reach the question of the viability of Esquire's anti-SLAPP defense.