State Senate president sued for defamation over Twitter jab

Since accusing former Arkansas gubernatorial candidate Chris Jones of “taking a Professional Hamas Terrorist place” on Twitter final week, state Senate President Bart Hester (R-Cave Springs) has been warned that he could be facing a defamation lawsuit.

He’s been given an opportunity to retract his statement and avoid a lawsuit, which he silently declined to do.

Now he’s been sued.

Represented by attorneys Tom Mars of Mars Legislation Agency and Kathryn E. Platt of Brady & Platt, Jones filed swimsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court docket this afternoon. The grievance alleges Hester deliberately and maliciously defamed Jones when Hester tweeted this on Could 1:

@ArkDems 2022 Governor nominee @JonesForAR taking a Professional Hamas Terrorist place. @JonesForAR could wish to take a knee to terrorist sympathizers.

I personally assume hand cuffs and expulsion letters is one of the best ways to NOT ignore them. https://t.co/NVnIXCO8hb

— Bart Hester (@BartHester) May 1, 2024

The grievance claims Hester’s assertion is fake, that Jones’ status was broken due to the false assertion, and that “Mr. Hester intentionally selected the phrases he utilized in his defamatory tweet and tagged the Democratic Social gathering of Arkansas with the intent to inflict the utmost quantity of attainable injury to Dr. Jones’ status.” (Alleging and proving Hester knew or ought to have recognized his assertion was false and that he made the assertion with reckless disregard for whether or not it was true is a component of a defamation declare the place, as right here, the topic of the assertion is a public determine.)

Hester “appears to thrive on the eye he receives from making public statements that generate controversy,” the lawsuit says. It additional notes Hester’s tweet about Jones “had been considered 50,900 instances” as of this morning, whereas Hester’s “different authentic tweets have garnered far much less consideration.” Particularly, the grievance references a Could 1 tweet with about 6,300 views, an April 1 tweet with 2,900 views, and a tweet from late March that “was considered solely 447 instances.”

Hester’s rejection of the chance to retract his assertion and apologize to Jones can also be talked about within the grievance. That is vital, as courts have held the failure to retract a defamatory assertion may be offered to a jury as proof of precise malice on the a part of the speaker.

Proving precise malice would enable Jones to recuperate punitive damages on high of the particular damages he incurred.

Hester didn’t reply to a request for remark from the Arkansas Occasions. Moderately than elaborate additional, Mars stated solely, “The grievance speaks for itself.”

Jones, nevertheless, issued the next assertion:

“Bart selected confrontation. And so, he can have it.”

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