In the ruling, the Judge is responding to the behavior of celebrity climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann and his attorneys during a civil trial in which Dr. Mann was the plaintiff.

To understand the ruling, one needs to go back a few years to the beginning of Dr. Mann’s saga.

The saga began when Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn wrote blog posts in which they accuse Dr. Mann of ““molest[ing] and tortur[ing] data in the service of politicized science[,]” “engaging in data manipulation[,]” and creating the “fraudulent climate-change ‘hockey-stick’ graph[.]””

Dr. Mann retaliated by suing Simberg and Steyn for defamation. After a drawn-out legal battle, Dr. Mann won his case, with the jury awarding him just $1 in compensatory damages from each defendant. However, the jury also awarded Dr. Mann $1 Million in punitive damages.

Thus, Dr. Mann and his supporters could gloat that Dr. Mann had succeeded in protecting climate science from nefarious parties. After all, nobody would dare challenge Dr. Mann’s science claims after he won $1 Million in a court of law.

Not so fast! In response to an appeal by the defendants, the Judge in the case investigated and learned that it was unlawful for Dr. Mann to be awarded $1 Million in punitive damages. According to legal predecent, the most that Dr. Mann could be awarded in punitive damages is $5,000. Thus, the judge replaced the $1 Million punitive award with a $5,000 punitive award.

If that were the end to the story, then Dr. Mann could have just sighed and went on with his life. However, the Judge in the case went one step further by sanctioning Dr. Mann and his attorneys “for bad-faith trial misconduct.”

Here are excerpts from a 12 March 2025 ruling in which the Judge issued the sanctions:

“Here, the Court finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that Dr. Mann, through [his lawyers] Mr. Fontaine and Mr. Williams, acted in bad faith when they presented erroneous evidence and made false representations to the jury and the Court regarding damages stemming from loss of grant funding … The Court does not reach this decision lightly.” – Page 29 of 46

“They [Mann’s attorneys] each knowingly made a false statement of fact to the Court and Dr. Mann knowingly participated in the falsehood, endeavoring to make the strongest case possible even if it required using erroneous and misleading information.” – Page 33 of 46

“The Court will add here that it is apparent, given the jury verdict, that the jury was paying close attention and concluded that there was no evidence to support Dr. Mann’s claim of loss of funding damages linked to the Defendants’ defamatory statements.” – Page 35 of 46

“It bears repeating that Dr. Mann and his counsel should not have engaged in falsehoods and misrepresentations to the jury and the Court in the first place. . .

The Court arrives at such a sanction because the misconduct of Dr. Mann and his counsel (1) was extraordinary in its scope, extent, and intent; (2) subjected a jury not only to false evidence and grievous misrepresentations about a crucial part of Dr. Mann’s case, but also to additional trial proceedings for correcting the record and the jury’s impressions thereof that otherwise likely would have been unnecessary; (3) further complicated a trial already rife with convoluted and difficult legal and factual issues; and (4) burdened Defendants and the Court with the time-and resource-intensive task of ascertaining the true extent of the misconduct and determining appropriate remedial measures for the same, all without any meaningful acknowledgement of the nature of the misconduct by Dr. Mann or his attorneys.” – Page 42 of 46