POWER MUST ANSWER.
Case file
This page identifies the materials supporting The Evidence Rolling Stone Left Unchecked. It separates court decisions from allegations recounted in those decisions and from contemporary reports of case outcomes.
Scope: Historical reporting and litigation arising from the November 2014 article. This is a selected source record, not the complete court docket or a new investigation into the underlying allegation.
Original article published online. | R1, factual background; R2, background.
Editor's note acknowledges discrepancies; its relationship to the article later becomes disputed. | R1, factual background and part IV.
Police conclusion reported; this Record uses the federal court's description of it. | R1, factual background.
Full retraction and apology. | R2, background.
Eramo files suit. | R1, factual background.
Elias, Fowler and Hadford bring their lawsuit. | R2, procedural history.
District court dismisses the alumni claims. | R2, procedural history.
Eramo summary-judgment opinion allows central disputes to proceed. | R1.
Jury finds liability and awards Eramo $3 million, allocated $2 million to Erdely's actions and $1 million to the magazine. | R5.
Defense counsel confirms Eramo settlement. | R6.
Amended appellate opinion restores some alumni claims and preserves other dismissals. | R2.
| ID | Material | What it supports | Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| R1 | Eramo v. Rolling Stone, September 22, 2016 opinion | Reporting notes, witness-contact gaps, evidence concerning Eramo's portrayal, public-figure status, actual-malice analysis and republication dispute. | A summary-judgment opinion. Disputed evidence and permissible inferences are evaluated under the applicable pretrial standard. It is not the later verdict. |
| R2 | Elias v. Rolling Stone, amended September 22, 2017 opinion | Individual identification claims, group theory, podcast holding, majority reasoning and partial dissent. | Review of dismissal at the pleading stage. Allegations are assumed true for that purpose. No damages awarded in this opinion. |
| R3 | Columbia commissioned review, April 2015 | Outside examination of the publication process, commissioned by Rolling Stone. | Journalism review, not a court judgment. |
| R4 | Reporters Committee case summary | Distinction between initial-publication and republication liability; media organizations' position on editor's notes. | Advocacy source supporting the publishers' post-trial position. |
| R5 | Contemporary November 2016 verdict account | Jury outcome and damages allocation. | Secondary account, not the signed verdict form. |
| R6 | Defense counsel's May 2017 account | Confirmation that the Eramo dispute settled. | Participant source; does not establish the payment amount. |
| R7 | Hollywood Reporter settlement report | December 2017 settlement of the alumni litigation. | Secondary outcome report. |
These are outbound source links. Unchecked does not host or independently authenticate these files.
Reporting process: R1 identifies evidence of missing corroboration, known inconsistencies and warnings about the portrayal of Eramo. Descriptions of disputed testimony are attributed to the opinion. Unchecked has not independently authenticated every exhibit discussed by the judge.
Eramo's legal status: The judge classified her as a limited-purpose public figure, requiring proof of actual malice. He did not need to resolve whether she was also a public official.
Writer and publisher: Their liability differed. The publisher's liability arose through the later republication with the editor's note, rather than a finding of actual malice in its initial publication. See R4.
Alumni claims: Elias and Fowler's individual claims survived the appeal. Hadford's individual identification theory failed. All three could proceed on the majority's group theory, from which Judge Lohier dissented. Podcast claims remained dismissed. See R2.
Money: A jury award is not proof of a settlement payment. The reviewed materials do not establish how much Eramo ultimately received.
Underlying allegation: The court's account of the police conclusion concerns the event described in the article. It supplies no basis for judging unrelated allegations.
This article analyzes public documents and published outcome accounts. No new interviews were conducted and no comment requests were sent for this article. The article includes the defendants' positions and relevant arguments recorded in the sources.
The magazine's discredited University of Virginia story produced a retraction, a jury verdict and multiple settlements. The court record shows how a publication investigating institutional failure became an institution with failures of its own to answer for.