By Taylor Kuykendall

Opinion and order issued by United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio on May 12 granting the motions to dismiss.

A federal judge has granted a motion to dismiss defamation claims against the media company that owns The Huffington Post filed by Murray Energy Corp. owner Robert Murray.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, ruled May 12 that Murray, the nation's largest privately held coal producer, failed to set forth claims upon which the court can grant relief.

"The targeted statements present protected opinions and not actionable statements of fact," the opinion states.

The lawsuit was filed over a Sept. 20, 2013 article titled "Meet the Extremist Coal Baron Bankrolling Ken Cuccinelli's Campaign," written by Michael Stark. Cuccinelli was the Republican candidate running for governor of Virginia.

In the story, Stark wrote that Cuccinelli accepted $30,000 "from an extremist billionaire that is funding an Obama impeachment effort, that allegedly extorts money from his low-wage employees, and fires his workforce wholesale in fits of spite when electoral results disappoint him."

Murray argued that the article's implication that Murray fired 150 miners as a result of President Barack Obama's re-election is an actionable statement and that the company actually "has a reputation for integrity and honesty and have been a leader in the coal industry and business community." U.S. District Judge Gregory Frost wrote in the opinion and order that while the article engages in conjecture that Murray may have acted out of spite, the court does not believe that the statements and their implications are "actionable."

"Regardless of whether the intended implication is that Murray is a man of his word or a spoiled individual mired in pettiness, the specific language used in making the point fails to capture an illicit motive," the judge wrote. "Pettiness is not a crime, and neither is exercising employment at will terminations for legal reasons, regardless of whether such reasons are logical, illogical, or just plain silly."

Murray claimed that statements made in the Huffington Post piece were defamatory and could be understood and interpreted as fact instead of opinion. Murray alleged in the suit that the statements caused "unreasonable and highly objectionable publicity by attributing to them characteristics and conduct or beliefs that are false, thereby placing them in a false light before the public."

According to the judge, Murray contended that publicly issued statements containing the company's reason for why it laid off coal miners prevent consideration of alternative reasons for dismissal to be considered an opinion. However, the judge said that because there are no objective tests to determine Murray's internal motivation and that Stark does not represent that he has private, firsthand knowledge of these motivations, the article does not make an assertion of fact.

Murray also claimed that the article's reference to Murray as an "extremist" is actionable, but the judge wrote that the word choice was a clear signal of hyperbolic writing. In its broader analysis, the court wrote that the statements at issue in the piece are written in "notably conversation style" and contains "outright opinions," "snarkiness" and "sarcasm."

"In other words, the article seeks to stir the pots of public interest and concern by relaying its viewpoint as much if not more than it seeks to inform. This is not to say that the article is devoid of facts," the judge wrote. "It includes both facts and opinions, presented more as an argument/call for concern than as an attempt only to engage in the traditional Five Ws of old-school journalism."

In a statement to SNL Energy on May 13, Murray spokesman Gary Broadbent called the court's decision wrong. "Judge Gregory L. Frost grossly erred in his decision. The Huffington Post's statements were blatantly false and totally concocted," he said.

The complaint originally was filed Oct. 25, 2013, in the Court of Common Pleas in Belmont County, Ohio, but was moved Oct. 28, 2013, to the U.S. District Court. The case was Robert E. Murray v. TheHuffingtonPost.com (2:13-cv-01066).

In October 2012, Murray Energy settled a lawsuit with The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette that was filed over what Murray called "numerous blatantly false and malicious articles" in a July 18 blog post by Ken Ward Jr. that allegedly damaged the reputations of Robert Murray and Murray Energy. Murray settled the suit in exchange for publication of an op-ed piece, written by Murray Energy and published by the Gazette on Oct. 27, titled "A Great Man for Coal Miners and Their Families."