Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer has filed a defamation lawsuit against the owner of Deadspin — a case that accuses the sports commentary website of publishing false information about him and making an "unrelenting attack" on him "with the purpose of humiliating him and ruining his baseball career."
The lawsuit particularly focuses on an article published by Deadspin on July 6, 2021, which said the woman who accused Bauer of assault last year had "her skull fractured" in an incident with Bauer, according to the lawsuit.
Other news media outlets reported about "signs" of such an injury because that is what the woman stated in her request for a temporary restraining order against Bauer. Her request filed in court in late June stated she was diagnosed with an "acute head injury" and said there were "signs of a basilar skull fracture."
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Bauer's representatives noted she had no skull fracture, as evidenced by a medical report attached to the woman's same request in court. A CT scan showed "no acute fracture," according to the report.
But while many of those outlets "corrected" their reporting of it, according to Bauer’s lawsuit, Deadspin "pushed forward with the false narrative" of a skull fracture on July 6 — about a week after the woman filed her petition in court. The article was published with the headline "Trevor Bauer should never pitch again."
The article initially stated, "We don't need an investigation and trial to know that she didn't consent to have her face beaten and her skull fractured." It also said his legal team's defense was that "it was only the initial CT scan that showed a fracture."
"These statements were false: there was no skull fracture and there was no `initial CT scan that showed a fracture,'" the lawsuit stated.
Deadspin subsequently removed the reference to the woman having "her skull fractured" and updated the article with a statement:
"After publication, Trevor Bauer’s representatives emphasized that medical records showed that while the woman was initially diagnosed with signs of a basilar skull fracture, a CT scan found no acute fracture."
Messages seeking comment from the writer of the article, Chris Baud, and Deadspin’s parent company, G/O Media, were not immediately returned. Both were named as defendants in the suit filed in New York and announced by Bauer on Thursday on his Twitter account.
"The false statements in the Article have ... severely damaged Mr. Bauer’s reputation, caused him anguish, humiliation, and embarrassment, and resulted in financial loss," his lawsuit states.
The lawsuit cites other examples of Deadspin’s coverage and seeks compensatory and punitive damages, saying the article was published with "hatred, ill will, and spite, with the intent to harm Mr. Bauer."
The woman in question had accused Bauer of choking her unconscious during sexual encounters at his home in Pasadena on two occasions in April and May. She said he went too far in encounters that began as consensual and said that Bauer punched her on the second encounter, leading her to visit the hospital with injuries.
Bauer described it recently as consensual "rough sex with a woman that I hardly knew."
He was never arrested or charged. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office declined to charge him based on a lack of evidence in the case.
A judge in family law court also dissolved the woman’s temporary restraining order against him in August after hearing evidence in the case in court. The judge found that the woman’s initial statement upon which she obtained the temporary restraining order was "materially misleading." The judge also said the injuries shown in photographs of the woman after an alleged incident with Bauer were "terrible."
Bauer was put on paid leave July 2 and never pitched again after that as the case played out and Major League Baseball investigated. He still faces potential discipline from baseball when the league resumes play.
The defamation suit isn't the only action he's taken in the fallout of last year's controversy. In a court filing late last month, his attorneys stated the woman "was part of a plan to seek rough sex so she could later seek to profit from this interaction."
They plan to pursue attorneys’ fees from the woman and her attorneys because they say her claims were based on false allegations and were made in bad faith, according to court documents. They served a subpoena to obtain her phone records from Pasadena police because they believe the records will show she deleted evidence of her "improper motives" in the case. In response, the woman’s attorneys are fighting it and said the subpoena was served "in all likelihood, for purposes of continued harassment" of the woman.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. E-mail: [email protected]
