A Los Angeles judge thinks Jay-Z’s defamation lawsuit against attorney Tony Buzbee might go to trial.
Rolling Stone reports that Judge Mark H. Epstein gave a tentative ruling Tuesday, highlighting Buzbee’s November 2024 social media behavior as potential defamation evidence. The lawyer called Jane Doe a “sexual assault survivor” in a post, then liked someone’s comment the next day guessing that Jay-Z was the unnamed John Doe in the lawsuit.
“When someone says Doe is Carter, and [Buzbee] ‘likes’ it, it’s not unreasonable to infer that [Buzbee] has just affirmed that he’s right, that Doe is Carter,” Epstein explained.
The judge raised eyebrows about the lawsuit’s timeline involving Jay-Z. Buzbee claimed he wouldn’t make a lawsuit or names public until finishing a complete investigation. However, the judge also mentioned Jay’s separate extortion claim probably wouldn’t survive in court.
“Not having done the investigation we’d all like one to do is not going to be enough to show actual malice, I know that. The concern I have is juxtaposing that with Mr. Buzbee’s statements that he was not going to bring a lawsuit until he had done a full investigation,” Epstein said. “I agree this is the hardest question of the case, the ‘actual malice’ question.”
The judge added, “If you say, ‘I’m not going to name names until I’ve done real investigating,’ and then you name a name, isn’t the implication that you did conduct a real investigation? And if you didn’t, is it okay? Is actual malice still not satisfied when I’m telling the public, ‘I did a real investigation and this guy engaged in child rape,’ and actually, I didn’t?”
While Epstein leans toward throwing out the extortion claim against Buzbee, the case continues with the next hearing set for March 26.
Speaking of attorneys, earlier this week, ASAP Rocky’s lawyer Joe Tacopina revealed he turned down Diddy’s case because of his loyalty to Jay-Z during their feud. Tacopina mentioned he considers Roc Nation like family, noting Jay-Z and Diddy don’t get along.
