A federal judge has sided with Dr. Mahendra Amin and ruled that NBCUniversal made “verifiably false” statements regarding the care he provided to women at the Irwin County Detention Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Ocilla, according to a Fox News report.
In September of 2020, a report from a whistleblower surfaced alleging that Dr. Amin performed unnecessary hysterectomies on women who were detained at the detention center. There were other allegations made regarding inadequate COVID-19 protocols and care; however, the hysterectomies are what propelled the story into the national discourse.
Several major news outlets picked up the story, including MSNBC and NBC. In MSNBC reports, Dr. Amin was referred to as a “uterus collector.” On-air show hosts also addressed Dr. Amin using other defamatory language, the report states. The Fox story also shows that court documents state that Dr. Amin only performed two hysterectomies on detainees.
The two procedures were performed at the Irwin County Hospital.
Documents also demonstrate that show hosts had concerns about the allegations levied against Dr. Amin but broadcast the allegations anyway.
Quoting Judge Lisa Godbey Wood, the Fox article states the following: “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. Charges based upon hearsay are the equivalent in law to direct charges.’”
The next step in the process is to determine if the network made its statements with actual malice, which is the second litmus test in deciding if statements are slanderous (spoken) or libelous (written). And that, stated Judge Wood, will be determined by a jury, according to the Fox report.