New York Times Breaks News of Own Loss in Defamation Case

Brian Zak/Sipa Press (via AP)

The New York Times reported Thursday that it had lost a defamation case brought by a former University of Alabama basketball player — marking the newspaper’s first such courtroom defeat involving one of its articles in more than half a century.

An eight-person federal jury in Alabama found the Times defamed Kai Spears in its coverage of a fatal 2023 shooting in Tuscaloosa and awarded him $9.25 million in damages.

Spears, who played for Alabama’s men’s basketball team, took the newspaper to court in 2023 over an article that wrongly placed him at the scene of the shooting. The paper had identified Spears as a passenger in a vehicle connected to the incident.

Spears was not there.

Three other Alabama basketball players, including Brandon Miller, were present when the shooting occurred, which left a 23-year-old mother dead.

In his lawsuit, Spears accused the Times of libel and “false light” invasion of privacy. He argued the erroneous report caused him emotional distress and permanently associated his name with a murder despite his absence from the scene.

The newspaper subsequently corrected its reporting and appended an editor’s note to the story after Spears filed suit. The correction identified the person who was actually riding in the vehicle, whose identity had not previously been made public. It read:

The original version of this article, published March 15, misidentified the person who was in the car with Brandon Miller when the shooting occurred.

Based on information from a person familiar with the case, the article erroneously identified that person as Kai Spears, a freshman basketball player. After the article was initially published, Alabama’s athletic director and Spears’s father denied that Spears was present. The Times included those responses and reviewed its reporting, but did not conclude that any other change to the article was warranted at that time.

On Wednesday, Spears filed a defamation suit against The Times that included new details about the incident. Based on that information, editors assigned further reporting, which determined that the other person at the scene was not Spears but Cooper Lee, a student manager for the team. The Times regrets the error in the initial report.

This article has been revised to remove the erroneous information; the latest updates can be seen here.

Following a nine-day trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, jurors sided with Spears on Thursday and handed down the multimillion-dollar award.

While Spears didn’t immediately respond to the newspaper’s requests for comment, Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for the Times, did.

“We’re disappointed the jury found The Times liable for an honest mistake,” he said. “We thank the jury for its service, but believe the verdict and award of damages are contrary to law and not supported by the evidence.”

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