Missouri Supreme Court
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - A man who says he was driven from his home by armed protesters after two women accused him of rape can sue his accusers for defamation, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled, disavowing “troubling” language in an earlier defamation decision.
Mouna Apperson, known as Nicholas, sued Natasha Kaminsky and Adriene Norman after they spread allegations in person and on social media that Apperson had raped and abused them. Apperson claimed not only was he driven from his house, but he had to resign from two organizations, lost a valuable speaking engagement, and was evicted from shared office space. Even the local coffee shop refused to serve him.
After a trial, circuit court judge David Vincent dismissed the cases against both women, agreeing with their arguments that Apperson had failed to provide independent evidence of damage to his reputation, beyond his own statements.
This was error, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in a Jan. 23 opinion by Judge Paul C. Wilson.
“It would not be possible to list every conceivable type of proof that could establish the requisite reputational harm,” the court said, but Apperson certainly had provided enough for a jury to decide his case.
The defendants, and the trial judge, relied upon upon dicta, or a statement outside the court’s holding, in another Missouri Supreme Court defamation case quoting a New Jersey Supreme Court opinion that said awards based on a plaintiff’s testimony or “inferred” damages “are unacceptable.” The quotation was “at best, poorly vetted,” the Supreme Court said, however. The New Jersey court was concerned only with the “evidence of reputational damage, not its source.”
Correcting the record, the court said Missouri law only requires “some concrete proof.”
“The jury, of course, is free to believe all, part, or none of Apperson’s testimony based on its assessment of his credibility,” the court concluded. “But, under the standard of review, this Court must assume the jury will find him credible.”
