A lawyer representing Kennedy Agyapong has filed a motion urging the court to drastically reduce the $18 million verdict awarded to investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, calling it “clearly excessive” and “shocking to the judicial conscience.”
In a letter to Judge Jeffrey B. Beacham, attorney E. Carter Corriston, Jr. argued that the damages awarded were not based on actual losses or competent evidence, but rather on emotionally charged arguments made by Anas’ lawyer.
“The award of compensatory damages of $18 million returned in 30 minutes clearly breaches the threshold of ‘shocking the conscience,’ even viewing it in a light most favorable to the plaintiff,” Mr Corriston wrote.
Mr Corriston insisted that Anas failed to prove that Mr Agyapong’s statements caused him any real financial or emotional harm.
“The plaintiff presented no experts, no witnesses, and no testimony from himself about any emotional damage that would justify the verdict,” the letter stated.
The lawyer further accused Anas’ counsel of introducing irrelevant and prejudicial evidence to sway the jury, including references to the murder of journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale and alleged judicial corruption in Ghana.
“These were severely prejudicial and not relevant to the claims regarding defamation that occurred in West Orange,” Mr Corriston wrote.
“There was no evidence presented regarding actual losses the plaintiff suffered as a result of the statements.”
Mr Corriston argued that the jury’s decision was not a fair compensatory award but rather an emotional response aimed at punishing Mr Agyapong.
“The entire tenor of the testimony and closing arguments was not about compensatory damages but rather to ‘stop the defendant,’” he stated, arguing that such rhetoric had tainted the jury’s decision-making process.
He also took issue with the speed of the verdict, noting that the jury reached its decision in just 30 minutes, which, he said, proved that “emotion, not evidence, drove the shocking verdict.”
While Mr Corriston did not seek to overturn the jury’s finding of liability, he insisted that the court must correct the injustice of a verdict that “has no rational relationship to the competent and relevant evidence presented.”
“The proper remedy at this time is the grant of remittitur to an amount that is fairly and reasonably calculated to compensate the plaintiff for the harm that was proven,” he concluded.
The motion, if granted, could significantly reduce the $18 million awarded to Anas in the high-profile defamation case.
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