Last week CNN lost a defamation lawsuit and was ordered to pay $5 million to the plaintiff, though that amount does not include punitive damages which have yet to be revealed. Up next is MSNBC, the failing network is facing its own defamation lawsuit over a series of on-air reports in September 2020 about a doctor dubbed the "uterus collector" who was allegedly forcing women in ICE custody to undergo unnecessary surgeries.

Plaintiff Dr. Mahendra Amin, an obstetrician gynecologist who provided medical care to women detained at the Irwin County Detention Center, was accused in 2020 of performing unnecessary hysterectomies by a nurse at the facility who made a whistleblower complaint. 

NBC published an article despite initial skepticism from the network’s standards department and MSNBC quickly followed with a series of on-air reports in which the doctor was often referred to as the "uterus collector" on September 15, 2020.

The whistleblower in this case, Dawn Wooten, was a nurse who claimed she had stumbled upon evidence of these crimes while working at an ICE detention center.

Wooten first got concerned about what was going on at Irwin when she returned to work in October 2019 after a four-year break. Covid cases, she claimed, were not being reported, documents were being shredded and, in the midst of all of that, detainees, many of whom were Spanish-speaking, were asking her to find out what surgical procedures they had undergone.

“Different migrant women were coming and asking me, ‘can you check and see what procedure I had?’ or ‘what happened to me yesterday?’ And they were coming back from the physician not knowing what was going on.”

She was mortified by what she found. Without their knowledge, the women, she said, had been subjected to hysterectomies, dilation and curettage (a procedure removing tissue from the uterus) and had tubes and ovaries removed.

When she started asking questions, her colleagues tried to silence her. “I asked my supervisor, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ One of the co-workers put a hand on my hand and she was like ‘Oh, you might want to leave that alone, I wouldn’t touch that’.” She soon faced disciplinary action and was told she no longer had a full-time position...

She did not meet or work with the gynaecologist, who was later identified as Dr Mahendra Amin and is understood to be still practising, but she heard references to the “uterus collector” from a detainee.

It was a dramatic claim which attracted a lot of attention on the left even as "Abolish ICE" was a popular slogan. The initial story was written by two NBC immigration reporters including Jacob Soboroff:

NBC began publishing articles about the whistleblower letter on the afternoon of September 15, 2020. The first two NBC articles republished much of the original Associated Press article but added some updated information, such as the ICE statement. NBC later published a third article that day focusing exclusively on alleged gynecological abuse at the facility. Jacob Soboroff and Julia Ainsley, two acclaimed NBC immigration reporters, researched and wrote this article. Soboroff and Ainsley’s research for this third article formed the basis for the research used in MSBNC’s broadcasts.

Ainsley and Soboroff spoke to multiple sources during their investigation of the whistleblower letter’s allegations. Id. Soboroff interviewed Dawn Wooten herself. Wooten’s interview was consistent with the allegations in the whistleblower letter. She also told Soboroff that she did not know the name of the gynecologist, did not know what happened when the detainees visited the gynecologist, and did not know how many women had undergone procedures. When Soboroff asked Wooten how many women had spoken with her about their gynecological procedures, Wooten answered: “I’ve had several women. I don’t have an exact count. Over the years that I’ve been there, out of the eight year time frame . . . several women . . . . I don’t have an answer.” Ultimately, Soboroff found Wooten to be a credible source of information.

Other sources provided information that contradicted some of the letter’s claims. One source, an immigration lawyer named Sarah Owings, told Soboroff that she and her colleagues were not finding evidence of a large numbers of hysterectomies at this early stage of the investigation. She did tell Soboroff, however, that she and her colleagues were “finding evidence that something was deeply wrong in how these women were being treated” and that further investigation was needed.

Jacob Soboroff really made his career reporting on Trump's family separation policy. He wrote a book about it which became a NY Times bestseller. So the idea that he would leap on another story that made Trump's immigration policies look cruel isn't much of a stretch to believe. But the evidence to support the claims really wasn't there. As Julia Ainsley texted Soboroff at one point "But only two hysterectomies? Or do you think they only referred those and he did others?"

Soboroff and Ainsley wrote the story and submitted it to NBC's standards department. Chris Scholl, deputy head of the department, sent them a response saying the story wasn't ready:

As I’ve been mulling, my concern is all we have is a public whistleblower complaint in which she provides no evidence to back up her claims. ICE makes essentially the same point, and it appears a valid one. She has no direct knowledge of what she’s claiming, is unable to name the doctor involved (if I understood correctly), and we are unable to verify any of it or determine whether there really is a story here. Essentially, it boils down to a single source—with an agenda—telling us things we have no basis to believe are true. At the least, we would have to note all of that in our reporting, but then it’s worth asking why we are reporting it in the first place. I think we need more of our own independent reporting before going with this. ICE’s statement alone doesn’t get us there.

But after gathering some more information, Scholl approved the story for publication. And once it went out, MSNBC jumped on it. Nicolle Wallace, Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow:

Maddow opened her show with: “It was not the first Trump administration scandal. It was certainly, certainly, certainly not the last.” She then provided commentary on the Trump Administration’s family separation policies and the then-Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Maddow stated: “But the reason I’m bringing it all up again tonight is because now we have arrived at the next chapter in this same story. And I’m not going to dance around it. I’m just going to say it, and I guess we should have seen it coming, but still, it’s a shock.” Maddow then began reporting on the whistleblower’s allegations. Id. During this segment, Maddow read portions of the whistleblower letter, played a recording of Soboroff’s interview of Wooten, and interviewed Soboroff.

Judge Lisa Godbey Wood looked at all of this and eventually ruled that the various MSNBC broadcasts included multiple claims that could be proved to be verifiably false: [emphasis added]

The undisputed evidence has established that: (1) there were no mass hysterectomies or high numbers of hysterectomies at the facility; (2) Dr. Amin performed only two hysterectomies on female detainees from the ICDC; and (3) Dr. Amin is not a “uterus collector.” The Court must look to each of the statements in the context of the entire broadcast or social media post to assess the construction placed upon it by the average viewer...

Viewed in their entirety, the September 15, 2020 episodes of Deadline: White House, All In With Chris Hayes, and The Rachel Maddow Show accuse Plaintiff of performing mass hysterectomies on detainee women. It does not matter that NBC did not make these accusations directly, but only republished the whistleblower letter’s allegations. If accusations against a plaintiff are “based entirely on hearsay,” “[t]he fact that the charges made were based upon hearsay in no manner relieves the defendant of liability...

The focus of the broadcasts was on mass, unnecessary, and unconsented-to hysterectomies performed on detained women. The statements operated as factual support for the allegations. The statements provided proof that a high number of unnecessary hysterectomies took place at the facility. Without the context of the broadcasts, the statements that Plaintiff was a uterus collector or that nearly everyone he treated had a hysterectomy could be construed as absurdist, possibly even comical, commentary. But when put in context of a story about a rogue doctor removing the reproductive organs of detained women without justification, the statements take on a factual role. They become capable of being proved false...

The issue here is not that NBC reported that Plaintiff treated ICE detainees when he actually treated state prisoners, or that he performed the procedures at his office when he actually performed them at a hospital. NBC did not get some innocuous details wrong. The alleged falsehoods are a night-and-day difference from the alleged truth. The damage done to Plaintiff’s reputation by the accusations that he physically hurt women, that he removed women’s reproductive organs without their consent, and that he performed unnecessary hysterectomies and medical procedures is materially different from any damage the pleaded truth would have caused—Plaintiff’s assertion that he did not injure any patients, always acted with consent, and performed only medically necessary procedures.

Ultimately, Judge Wood concluded the case needed to go to a jury to determine whether defamation had occurred. The trial in this case is set to begin in Georgia this April. Based on the facts presented by the judge, it seems the network could be in some real trouble here, not to mention the embarrassment of having their prime time lineup have to testify at trial.

My guess, and that's all it is, is that MSNBC would probably prefer to settle this than take a risk of having this become a major media story which further harms their ailing brand. Given the facts above, I'm surprised they haven't settled already.

Correction: Originally I said the punitive damages in the CNN case were pending. Actually, the punitive damages in that case have been settled but the amount has not been revealed.