The Delaware Supreme Court last week upheld a Superior Court decision dismissing a defamation lawsuit filed by the former owner of a Wilmington computer repair shop against Hunter Biden and media outlets.
The ruling came over a long-running lawsuit filed by John Paul Mac Isaac. Also upheld was the dismissal of an invasion of privacy lawsuit filed against Mac Isaac by Hunter Biden.
The ruling included Mac Isaac's account of Biden leaving a damaged Apple laptop computer at his repair shop in Wilmington's Trolley Square neighborhood. According to Mac Isaac, Biden asked him to save the contents of the hard drive.
The shop owner said the son of the future president never returned to pay for repairs. After becoming concerned about the content he viewed, while saving the files, Mac Isaac turned over a copy to the FBI and later to an attorney for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was part of President Donald Trump's 2020 re-election campaign at the time.
The purported contents led to a story in the New York Post with other outlets rejecting requests for coverage.
Dozens of security experts indicated that the reported contents of the hard drive resembled Russian disinformation efforts.
Mac Isaac closed the business known as The Mac Shop in 2020, citing adverse publicity. That period also featured reporters arriving the business, with Mac Isaac answering questions. It led to a story on the Daily Beast website that described the event as bizarre.
In October 2022, Mac Isaac sued then-Congressman. Adam Schiff (D-CA), CNN, Politico, and Hunter Biden. Biden counter-sued claiming an invasion of privacy. The former Apple repair shop owner had gone on to write a b
The Superior Court ruled against both Mac Isaac and Hunter Biden.
Both the Biden and Mac Isaac cases faced the state's two-year deadline for filing defamation cases. The short timeline has led plaintiffs to file cases in federal court, which has a longer statute of limitations.
Supreme Court Justice Karen L. Valihura issued a lengthy dissent over one portion of the ruling.
Valihura argued that Mac Issac had grounds for a defamation case in the case of a Politico headline related to alleged Russian involvement in the laptop cases. Other justices disagreed and cited the story making it clear that intelligence experts did not tie Mac Isaac to any Russian operation.
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