MSNBC Settles Defamation Lawsuit

NBC News has settled a $30 million defamation lawsuit with Dr. Mahendra Amin, a Georgia-based obstetrician-gynecologist, over false claims aired by MSNBC, an NBCUniversal subsidiary. 

The case stemmed from 2020 reports where prominent MSNBC hosts, including Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, and Chris Hayes, along with correspondent Jacob Soboroff, accused Dr. Amin of performing “mass hysterectomies” on female immigrant detainees at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Irwin County, Georgia. These allegations originated from a whistleblower complaint by a nurse, which claimed Dr. Amin was nicknamed the “uterus collector” due to unnecessary and non-consensual surgeries.

Dr. Amin filed the lawsuit in 2021, asserting that the accusations were baseless and defamatory. He denied performing mass hysterectomies, stating he had conducted only two such procedures at the facility, both with ICE approval and patient consent. An investigation by NBC itself failed to corroborate the whistleblower’s claims, and a federal probe later confirmed that only two hysterectomies were performed by Dr. Amin, contradicting the narrative of widespread abuse. 

Despite this, MSNBC aired multiple segments—10 on The Rachel Maddow Show, seven on All In with Chris Hayes, and six on Deadline: White House—repeating the allegations, which Dr. Amin argued caused irreparable harm to his reputation and livelihood.

The settlement was finalized in February 2025, just months before a jury trial scheduled for April 22, 2025, in Waycross, Georgia. The exact terms of the settlement remain undisclosed, but it resolved Dr. Amin’s claims for $10 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive damages. U.S.

District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood had previously ruled that a jury could reasonably find “actual malice” in NBC’s actions, noting that the network broadcast the accusations despite its own investigation undermining them. This legal threshold—knowingly publishing false statements or acting with reckless disregard for the truth—strengthened Dr. Amin’s case.