Court mostly upholds verdict against activists behind undercover Planned Parenthood videos

A federal court largely upheld a nearly $2.5-million jury verdict Friday against a group of antiabortion activists who secretly recorded Planned Parenthood employees and later edited the videos to suggest the organization was illegally profiting off the sale of fetal tissue. Krasnoff said the appellate court had made clear, again, that “the only people who engaged in wrongdoing were those behind this malicious fraud.” Krasnoff said the lawsuit was “never about monetary gain” but “exposing the fraudulent and illegal actions” of the activists and ensuring Planned Parenthood could continue serving its patients. In the lower federal court, Planned Parenthood was awarded nearly $2.43 million in an assortment of damages, including $870,000 in punitive damages for claims of fraud, trespassing, and wiretapping violations. In the opinion, Gould was careful to note that the court’s findings as to the activists’ actions, which he described as “subterfuge,” did not in any way “impose a new burden on journalists or undercover investigations using lawful means.” Instead, he wrote, the court was simply reaffirming “the established principle that the pursuit of journalism does not give a license to break laws of general applicability.”