The Gateway Pundit reported on disabled Navy veteran John Sabal’s defamation suit against the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Sabal, who organizes patriotic festivals and has never been arrested, alleges that the ADL defamed him when it published his name in the ADL Center on Extremism’s “Glossary of Extremism and Hate.”
The Glossary ONLY names 295 people, many of them notorious terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, Timothy McVeigh, Dylann Roof, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, ‘an al Qaeda member and the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attack,’ the Glossary reminds us.”
On March 31, 2025, The Honorable Reed O’Connor, Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division, rejected the ADL’s latest efforts to stop Sabal’s suit.
Judge O’Connor quoted well-known case law in his ruling, stating that the mere fact that a disgruntled litigant intends to inevitably appeal does not create an exceptional case warranting a mid-suit appeal, and the law depended on by the ADL in its motion is “not a vehicle to question the correctness of a district court’s ruling or to obtain a second, more favorable opinion.”
“The ADL’s latest effort to delay John Sabal’s defamation suit has failed, as the court denied the ADL’s attempt for a mid-suit appeal and stay of proceedings based on a claim that Sabal is a public figure. In keeping with fine federal court tradition, this case will still be heard as scheduled in July,” said Warren V. Norred, of NORRED LAW.
The ruling marks the third strike for the ADL’s defense team, which has now attempted and failed to stop the suit on three occasions.
In his four-page ruling, Judge O’Connor wrote, “For the foregoing reasons, the court denies Defendant’s Motion to Certify an Immediate Appeal (ECF No. 66). Because the Court does not certify an immediate appeal, the Court also denies Defendant’s Motion to Stay depending an appeal.”
This case has been ongoing for over a year, and discovery has concluded. NORRED LAW was asked to step in after the ADL sought summary judgment and was unsuccessful.
Judge O’Connor’s order on that motion carefully evaluated Mr. Sabal’s complaint, dismissed his claims regarding injurious falsehood, upheld his claim that the ADL defamed him by including him in its “Glossary of Extremism and Hate,” and suggested that he is a “dangerous, extremist threat, and even a criminal.”
Judge O’Connor also preserved Sabal’s claim regarding the ADL’s report, “Hate in the Lone Star State.”
A trial date has been set for July 16, 2025.
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