A federal judge said Wednesday he intends to substantially reduce a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood against the citizen journalists who documented the abortion mill’s sales of baby body parts with undercover video.
In a victory for the First Amendment rights of the Center for Medical Progress, the producer of the videos, Judge William Orrick III of U.S. District Court in San Francisco delivered a tentative ruling which stated that the judge was “inclined to exclude from the case all damages that stem from third parties’ reactions to the release of the video recordings as impermissible damages barred by the First Amendment absent a defamation claim.”
The lawsuit will move ahead on September 30, but Orrick’s ruling cuts Planned Parenthood’s claim from over $20 million in damages to less than $100,000 due to the organization’s failure to provide evidence.