Deadspin’s ‘provable false assertions’ in article about 9-year-old Chiefs fan in face paint, headdress just came back to haunt website in defamation suit

Sports blog Deadspin has lost its bid to dismiss a defamation lawsuit over an article accusing a young Kansas City Chiefs fan wearing a Native American headdress and blackface of being racist.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Sean Lugg denied Deadspin’s motion on Monday to dismiss the lawsuit, rejecting arguments that the article was opinion and protected from liability for defamation, The Associated Press reported.

“Deadspin published an image of a child displaying his passionate fandom as a backdrop for its critique of the NFL’s diversity efforts and, in its description of the child, crossed the fine line protecting its speech from defamation claims,” the judge wrote, the wire service reported. “Having reviewed the complaint, the court concludes that Deadspin’s statements accusing H.A. of wearing black face and Native headdress ‘to hate Black people and the Native American at the same time,’ and that he was taught this hatred by his parents, are provable false assertions of fact and are therefore actionable.”

In an email to the AP, Elizabeth Locke, an attorney for the boy’s parents Raul Armenta Jr. and Shannon Armenta, said, “Deadspin and Carron Phillips have never shown a morsel of remorse for using a 9-year-old boy as their political football. The Armenta family is looking forward to taking depositions and presenting this case to a jury at trial.”

The lawsuit, which refers to the boy as “H.A.,” accuses the outlet of “maliciously” maligning the child as racist based on a “misleadingly edited photo” that claimed he wore the costume to “hate Black people and the Native Americans at the same time.”

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The photo Deadspin used in the article was a screenshot of the child from the broadcast of the game showing only the right side of his face — which was painted black — but omitted the left side of his face, which was painted red, two of the team’s three colors.

“Those few seconds provided just the opportunity for Deadspin Senior Writer Carron Phillips to, on behalf of himself and his employer Deadspin, maliciously and wantonly attack a nine-year-old boy and his parents for Phillips’ own race-drenched political agenda,” the complaint says. “By selectively capturing from the CBS broadcast an image of H.A. showing only the one side of his face with black paint on it — an effort that took laser-focused precision to accomplish given how quickly the boy appeared on screen — Phillips and Deadspin deliberately omitted the half of H.A.’s face with red paint on it.”

The Armentas say their son simply displayed his love for his favorite football team like “other avid sports fans have done for decades.”

The parents also dispute Deadspin’s claim that the child learned to “hate” Black people and Native Americans from his parents while also noting that H.A. himself is partially Chumash-Indian, as his father belongs to the Santa Ynez Bank of the Chumash Indians and works on the tribal reservation. The boy’s paternal grandfather was also a tribal elder, the complaint said.

“The problem with Phillips’ Article: literally none of it was true,” the suit states. “Before this controversy, nine-year-old H.A. had no idea what blackface was or the racist history behind it. And he certainly did not wear black paint on half of his face to mimic or mock Black people. He is a child, and until Deadspin and Phillips’ malicious accusation, it never occurred to nine-year-old H.A. that a person could hate another for the color of their skin. The truth is that H.A.’s face was painted in Chiefs’ team colors, black and red, split down the middle — just as myriad fans and team regalia have for decades.”

The parents emphasized that they’ve taught H.A. and their other children to be proud of their Native American heritage. They further allege that when they pushed back against the story’s alleged falsehoods, Deadspin “doubled down” and “further defamed the Armenta family” by republishing the article with “an intentionally misleading update.”

“Over the next two weeks, the Armenta Family repeatedly wrote to Deadspin demanding that it retract the Article and apologize to the Armenta Family,” the complaint states. “Deadspin did not retract the Article, and it did not apologize. Rather, it published a series of further “updates” that not only failed to correct the record, but instead established that Deadspin fully understood the Article’s highly damaging and defamatory nature — while maliciously refusing to back down. And Deadspin’s lawyers threatened the Armenta family with counter-legal action should Raul and Shannon attempt to hold Phillips and Deadspin accountable for their false and defamatory Article.”

In December, Deadspin removed all of the photos and other information identifying H.A. and included an editor’s note stating that the article unintentionally “drew attention to the fan” when it meant to spotlight “the NFL and its checkered history on race.”

The website has since been sold to Lineup Publishing and its staff has been laid off .

A spokesperson for G/O Media, Deadspin’s former parent company, said in an email that the company had no comment, the AP reported.

Law&Crime’s Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.

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