The New York Times and former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin have explored trying to settle her defamation case against the newspaper, their lawyers said on Tuesday, Reuters reports. The disclosures came during a phone conference where with U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan, who scheduled a retrial for April 14, 2025. Seven years ago, in 2017, Palin, 60, sued the Times over an editorial that incorrectly suggested she may have incited a 2011 mass shooting in Arizona where six people died and Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously wounded. The Times corrected the editorial quickly, but Palin, also the former governor of Alaska, said it damaged her reputation and that the Times should pay damages. James Bennet, the Times' editorial page editor at the time, is also a defendant.
In August, a federal appeals court's decision threw out a February 2022 verdict that had been in the Times' favor, saying it was tainted by several of the judge's rulings. In reviving Palin's case, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled Rakoff wrongly excluded evidence that Palin believed reflected the Times' "actual malice," and also wrongly instructed jurors on how much proof she needed to prevail. Lawyers for both sides had asked for a July 2025 retrial, to accommodate people's schedules and allow more time to negotiate. While neither side said talks are ongoing, the Times' lawyer David Axelrod said a "non-trial disposition" of the case was possible, and "we may not need a trial date at all." Kenneth Turkel, a lawyer for Palin, said both sides "wanted to give it a shot." Rakoff suggested that a magistrate judge or mediator get involved. "If you're seriously interested in settling, it could be settled in a matter of days," he said. Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander said in an email that the newspaper anticipates a retrial, but said that negotiations were standard practice for lawsuits: "the court in every litigation expects the parties to discuss whether they can reach a resolution."