Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore’s $8.2 million defamation verdict was reversed Friday by a federal appeals court, which found Moore failed to prove a political ad defamed him during his 2017 U.S. Senate campaign.

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit sided with the Senate Majority PAC, ruling that Moore did not prove by clear and convincing evidence that the PAC acted with actual malice when it ran ads referencing news reports alleging he committed sexual misconduct involving underage girls, according to Bloomberg Law.

The actual malice standard is the legal threshold required for a public figure to win a defamation claim.

A lower court jury had ruled in Moore’s favor in 2022, awarding $8.2 million in damages. The Eleventh Circuit reversed that verdict and granted judgment as a matter of law to the Senate Majority PAC.

The appeal centered on an implied claim in the PAC’s television ad that Moore solicited sex from a 14-year-old girl working as a Santa’s helper at a mall in Gadsden. Moore argued that specific claim had not appeared in any of the original news reports and that he had presented evidence at trial disputing it.

The PAC argued the implication was unintentional and resulted from imprecise phrasing, and that its overall fact-checking efforts demonstrated a commitment to accuracy.

The sexual misconduct allegations originated with a Washington Post article in November 2017. Nine women ultimately accused Moore of sexual misconduct decades earlier, when they were teenagers and Moore was a lawyer in his 30s working in the Etowah County district attorney’s office.

Moore has lost three other federal defamation lawsuits related to the 2017 allegations.

Jeffrey Wittenbrink, an attorney representing Moore, told Bloomberg Law that Moore is considering a petition for review at the U.S. Supreme Court, where at least three justices have expressed interest in revisiting the actual malice standard.

“The conventional wisdom is that a public figure can’t hardly get a judgment for defamation,” Wittenbrink told Bloomberg Law, noting the trial jury nevertheless ruled in Moore’s favor on the actual malice question.

Sawyer Knowles is a state and political reporter for Yellowhammer News. You may contact him at [email protected].