Attorneys for disgraced casino mogul Steve Wynn, whose 2018 defamation case against The Associated Press (AP) was rejected last year by the Nevada Supreme Court, have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a 60-year-old landmark case that established the actual malice rule in libel law.

A UNLV law professor, who reviewed the filing Friday, said the justices could weaken protections surrounding freedom of the press, which were strengthened by New York Times Co. vs. Sullivan, a 1964 ruling that limited the ability of public officials to sue for defamation, and confirmed the freedom of the press under the First Amendment. 

Under the existing standard for proving libel against a public figure, someone must establish that a person made a statement knowing it was false or with reckless disregard for the truth. 

“This would be a dangerous time to revisit the protection of the free press,” said David Orentlicher, a professor at UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law who is also a Democratic member of the Assembly. “Unfortunately, we have an administration that has decided to target the press and others who write critical commentary. There is a blurring of lines between government officials and private persons who have power. This is exactly the wrong time to weaken the protection of the press.”

Patrick File, an associate professor of media law at the UNR’s Reynolds School of Journalism, said in an email the petition was directed at two associate justices — Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — who he said have signaled in previous cases a willingness to reconsider Sullivan and the breadth of protection for speech on matters of public concern.

“The hope here would apparently be that those two critics of this precedent could convince their seven colleagues to overturn it or significantly weaken it,” File wrote. 

He added that protection of the “actual malice” standard extends to anyone who “might be sued by powerful people or entities we criticize in good faith. It’s not just some legal privilege for the news media.”

He said overturning the actual malice standard would “significantly alter” the country’s free expression landscape. 

In a filing with the nation’s highest court, attorneys for Wynn wrote that many states, including Nevada, have incorporated the actual malice standard into anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) statutes. Those states require public figure plaintiffs to prove the merits of their case — including actual malice — before any pretrial discovery can take place.

Wynn sued the news organization and a Las Vegas-based reporter, saying he was defamed by an AP story about two women who alleged Wynn committed sexual misconduct.

“State courts are split over the application of the actual malice standard’s clear and convincing evidence burden to public figure plaintiffs in anti-SLAPP, cases and whether it violates a plaintiff’s right to a civil jury trial,” wrote Wynn’s attorneys Todd Bice and Jordan Smith from the Las Vegas law firm of Pisanelli Bice.

Anti-SLAPP laws are intended to protect people from meritless lawsuits that are filed to intimidate them from exercising their First Amendment rights. 

The seven-member Nevada Supreme Court last September upheld a February ruling by a three-judge panel that cited the state's anti-SLAPP law.

That ruling said anti-SLAPP statutes “were designed to limit precisely the type of claim at issue here, which involves a news organization publishing an article in a good faith effort to inform their readers regarding an issue of clear public interest.”

In the filing, Bice said the Supreme Court could decide whether a person’s right to a civil jury trial under the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is being violated.

Bice could not be reached for comment on Friday. 

Wynn, now 83, sold his stock and relinquished his gaming license in February 2018, a few weeks after The Wall Street Journal published an article detailing what it described as a “decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct” by Wynn. He could also not be reached for comment on Friday.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board filed a five-count complaint against Wynn in October 2019, seeking to deem him unsuitable to hold a gaming license because of the allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct. In July 2023, he cut ties to the industry he helped shape in Las Vegas, agreeing with Nevada gambling regulators to pay a $10 million fine, with no admission of wrongdoing.

Wynn’s defamation lawsuit in April 2018 against AP and one of its reporters quoted a woman who filed claims to police that Wynn raped her in the 1970s in Chicago and that she gave birth to their daughter in a gas station restroom.   

Updated at 6:01 p.m. on 2/7/2025 to include comments from Patrick File.