A three-judge panel of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday overturned the $8.2 million damages award that former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore had won against the Senate Majority PAC, ruling that Moore failed to prove the Democratic-aligned group acted with actual malice when it aired attack ads during his 2017 U.S. Senate race.
The decision vacates a 2022 jury verdict and orders the trial judge to enter summary judgment for the PAC, a complete reversal that wipes Moore's legal victory off the books. Moore's attorney, Jeffrey Wittenbrink, called the ruling "disappointing" and signaled plans to challenge it, potentially taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
For conservatives who watched Moore's defamation case as a test of whether political operatives could be held accountable for misleading campaign ads, the ruling is a cold reminder of how high the legal bar remains for public figures seeking redress. The actual malice standard, rooted in the 1964 Supreme Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan, requires a plaintiff to show that the defendant published a statement "with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." That standard has shielded media organizations and political groups for decades, and it shielded the Senate Majority PAC here.
The case centered on a political ad that the Senate Majority PAC ran during the final weeks of Moore's 2017 campaign for the Alabama U.S. Senate seat. The PAC aired the ad more than 500 times, the Washington Examiner reported, saturating Alabama airwaves with claims tied to misconduct allegations against Moore.
Moore sued the PAC in 2019, alleging defamation and "false-light invasion of privacy." He argued the ads made assertions that went beyond what the underlying news reports actually said. A jury agreed with him in 2022, awarding $8.2 million in damages, a significant sum that briefly looked like a landmark win for a public figure fighting back against a well-funded political machine.
But the 11th Circuit panel saw it differently. Judge Elizabeth Branch, writing for the court, found that the ads "did not make the assertions that Moore said they did." Instead, the panel concluded, the ads included citations to news articles so that viewers could read the underlying claims for themselves. Branch also noted that the PAC had fact-checked the ad before airing it.
The appeals court's reasoning went further. AP News reported that the judges found the PAC made a "negligent error at best", but negligence, the panel stressed, "is not a basis for a finding of actual malice." Branch wrote that "the evidence discussed above is inadequate to support a finding of the necessary intent to defame for purposes of actual malice in a defamation-by-implication case."
That distinction matters. A careless mistake is not the same as a deliberate lie. Under Sullivan, only the latter, or something close to it, can sustain a defamation verdict against a public figure. The court found Moore cleared neither threshold.
Moore's 2017 Senate race was one of the most polarizing contests of the Trump era. He won a Republican primary runoff but lost the general election to Democrat Doug Jones, who took 49.9% of the vote. The Senate Majority PAC, a group aligned with Senate Democratic leadership, poured resources into the race, and the ad at the center of this lawsuit was part of that effort.
The case has drawn attention from legal observers interested in how courts handle defamation claims by political candidates, a question that has gained new urgency as high-profile verdict challenges continue to move through the federal system.
SMP attorney Ezra Reese wasted no time framing the outcome in political terms. He called the circuit court's ruling a "total vindication of Senate Majority PAC" and told the Associated Press that the group "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."
Reese then added a personal shot at Moore, saying "Alabama voters correctly decided that they did not want a disgusting creep like Roy Moore representing them in the United States Senate." Whatever one thinks of Moore, Reese's language tells you something about the tone the PAC's legal team chose to strike, not the measured language of vindication, but the language of a political operation that never stopped campaigning.
The ruling raises a question that has been simmering in conservative legal circles for years: Is the actual malice standard, as currently applied, effectively a blank check for political groups to say nearly anything about public figures during campaign season?
The Sullivan framework was designed to protect vigorous public debate. Few conservatives would argue against robust First Amendment protections. But the practical effect of the standard, as this case illustrates, is that a political action committee can blanket a state with more than 500 airings of an ad, a jury can find the ad defamatory and award millions in damages, and an appeals court can still erase the verdict because the plaintiff could not prove the PAC knew the ad was misleading or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
The court's finding that the PAC fact-checked its own ad before airing it actually worked against Moore. By showing it took steps to verify the content, the PAC demonstrated exactly the kind of care that defeats an actual malice claim. That creates a perverse incentive: do a cursory fact-check, keep a paper trail, and you've built yourself a legal shield, even if the final product misleads voters. The Supreme Court's recent willingness to revisit long-standing legal frameworks in other contexts has led some to wonder whether Sullivan itself might eventually face a fresh challenge.
Moore's attorney, Wittenbrink, told Politico the ruling was "disappointing" and indicated he expects to challenge it. If the case reaches the Supreme Court, it could provide a vehicle for justices who have already expressed interest in reconsidering the actual malice standard. Justice Clarence Thomas, among others, has signaled openness to revisiting Sullivan in prior opinions.
For now, the $8.2 million verdict is gone. The 11th Circuit's order directing summary judgment for the PAC means Moore cannot simply retry the case at the district level. His only path forward is appellate, either a petition for rehearing en banc before the full 11th Circuit or a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Neither route is easy. The Supreme Court accepts only a small fraction of the petitions it receives, and the justices would need to see a broader legal question worth resolving, not just a dispute over one Alabama campaign ad. But the tension between Sullivan's protections and the real-world consequences of political attack advertising is not going away. Courts across the country continue to grapple with where the line falls, and the current Supreme Court has shown no reluctance to take on cases that challenge long-settled precedent.
The court opinion is available as a PDF from the 11th Circuit.
A jury of ordinary citizens heard the evidence and decided Moore was wronged. A panel of federal judges said that wasn't enough. If a $8.2 million verdict backed by 500-plus ad airings can't survive the actual malice standard, it's fair to ask who the standard still protects, and who it leaves without a remedy.