Mann vs Steyn: January 2026 Update

In the closest modern equivalent to Bleak House's "Jarndyce v Jarndyce" (now at fourteen years and counting), the Superior Court of the District of Columbia has issued its verdict on--in which it denies--Michael Mann's request for reconsideration of its finding in March 2025 that Mann "knowingly fed the jury false data" when presenting the amount of financial ill Mann had suffered because of Steyn's 2012 takedown of his "hockey stick" graph.

Steyn's report on the matter can be found here: https://www.steynonline.com/15916/mann-9m-jury-lie.

As Steyn explains it, Mann purposefully and graphically represented his losses--in the manner of grant funding and reputation--before the jury in the original trial, as somewhere considerably north of nine million dollars.

However, in a round of "discovery," but before the presentation in court, that amount had already been corrected to $112,000.

As Steyn relates, Mann's defense--as propounded by his attorneys--of the proposal of the wrong amount (more than 85 times greater than the correct amount) in front of the jury, had to do with the fact that the court already knew the amount was grossly inflated (although--it should be pointed out--the jury, which was the entity tasked with determining Steyn's guilt and the monetary award for such, did not).

So, after the jury, in 2024, determined that Steyn owed Mann $1M in damages, the judge determined that amount "grossly excessive" and--over a year later--reduced it to $5K.

Also in its January 2026 ruling, the court additionally ordered Mann to pay $28K to defendants Steyn and Simberg.

I don't know where this goes from here. It appears to be never-ending. Mann--despite this and other scandals over the years--still enjoys his doubtless well-remunerated position as Director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media (Wut?) at UPenn, while Steyn, in the throes of ill-health, plods on.