Jesse Ventura’s $1.8 Million Defamation Award In ‘American Sniper’ Case Thrown Out

Jesse Ventura, who was previously awarded $1.8 million in a defamation lawsuit against the late Chris Kyle for his bestseller American Sniper, has seen the ruling overturned.

Jesse Ventura American Sniper Case

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a jury’s decision to award Ventura $1.8 million in the 2014 court case, reported the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Per the ruling, Minnesota law does not permit awarding the $1.35 million for “unjust enrichment.” The panel, in a 2-1 decision, also reversed the $500,000 award for defamation.

The defamation suit will return to the district court for a new trial.

Neither representatives for Ventura nor for Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle’s widow, have commented on the verdict.

Back in October, Taya Kyle’s attorney’s had asked the federal appeals court to throw out Ventura’s reward, and set about arguing for a mistrial or a new trial to be ordered.

At the time, Ventura was convinced that the $1.8 million award was his due, maintaining that Kyle had fabricated an altercation with him in American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. According to Ventura, the publicity that came with the anecdote about him – a former WWF fighter and Minnesota mayor – helped propel the book toward it massive success.

In July of 2014, Ventura’s case against Kyle ended in a split 8-2 verdict in which the jurors awarded him the $1.8 million. Throughout the trial, Ventura argued that Kyle’s memoir contained an untrue and damaging story about him. In the book, Kyle writes about a man he dubbed “Scruff Face,” who disparaged Navy Seals, and consequently received a punch to the face from Kyle that knocked the former wrestler to the ground.

Ventura first filed his defamation suit in 2012. However, Kyle was killed in February 2013 along with a friend at a gun range by an Iraq War veteran they were trying to help deal with crippling PTSD. As a result of Kyle’s death, his surviving wife Taya Kyle became the defendant of his estate.