Liana Shanti Court Cases: The 2026 Defamation Verdict and Full Legal Record

This page is a chronological record of court matters involving Liane Wilson, who works online as Liana Shanti. Everything below is drawn from public filings and public court records, and the documents are linked where they are available. The most recent matter — a federal defamation case tried to a jury in August 2026 — is set out first.

The 2026 Federal Defamation Case

Life Mastery Network LLC and Liane Wilson v. Paula Haygarth, Byron Horvath and Stefanie Horvath, No. 1:25-cv-00297-JAO-RT, United States District Court for the District of Hawai‘i. Wilson brought the case. She lost it, and lost on the counterclaims brought against her.

The filings, in order

Date	Filing	Effect
6 December 2022	Complaint filed — Circuit Court of the Fifth Circuit, Hawai‘i, No. 5CCV-22-0000107	Liane Wilson and Life Mastery Network LLC sue Paula Haygarth and Byron Horvath for defamation.
3 July 2025	First amended complaint	Adds further claims and names a third defendant, Stefanie Horvath.
14 July 2025	First amended counterclaim	The defendants counterclaim, alleging Wilson defamed them and their family members.
17 July 2025	Notice of removal (ECF 1)	The defendants remove the case to the United States District Court for the District of Hawai‘i, where it becomes No. 1:25-cv-00297-JAO-RT before Judge Jill A. Otake.
22 May 2026	Omnibus order on summary judgment and expert testimony (ECF 92)	Dismisses Wilson’s claims over a Facebook post, over the letters sent to the judge in her criminal case, and her emotional-distress claim. What remains proceeds only as to anonymous posts. Grants the defendants partial summary judgment on one counterclaim.
10 July 2026	Rulings on motions in limine (ECF 115)	Excludes evidence of the death threats Wilson alleged, as a sanction for failing to preserve it, and excludes reference to the stalking she alleged. Two other defence motions are denied.
13 July 2026	Entering order (ECF 126)	Orders all parties to stop posting about the case on social media or anywhere else, public and private accounts alike.
3–13 August 2026	Jury trial, Honolulu	Eleven days before Judge Otake.
13 August 2026	Special verdict forms (ECF 245, 247, 249, 251, 253, 255)	The jury rejects every claim Wilson brought and finds for all three counterclaimants.
11 September 2026	Motion for Rule 54(b) certification and status report (ECF 274, 275)	Final judgment has not been entered. The counterclaimants ask the court to certify the verdicts as final, and give notice that a motion for an injunction will follow by 21 September 2026.

What the jury decided

On 13 August 2026 the jury returned its verdicts.

On every claim Wilson had brought — defamation, false light, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy — the jury found in favour of each defendant and against both Wilson and her company, and entered no damages on any count.

On the counterclaims it found for all three counterclaimants and against Wilson and Life Mastery Network, jointly and severally, holding the statements Wilson had made about each of them to be defamation per se and finding in each case that punitive damages were warranted. The awards total just over $40 million — $10.1 million in compensatory damages across the defamation and false light claims, and $30 million in punitive damages.

These are the jury’s answers on the verdict forms, not an entered judgment. At the time of publication, in September 2026, final judgment has not been entered, and the figures remain subject to post-trial motions and any appeal.

A public figure, as a matter of law

The same 22 May 2026 order settled a question that governs how anyone may write about Liana Shanti. Whether a person is a public figure is decided by the judge, not the jury, and the court held that she is one — and not merely for a single controversy, but in general: “Here, the Court finds that Liane is a public figure… Therefore, Liane is a businessperson who is famous for who she is, making her a general purpose public figure.” Her own counsel conceded the point at the hearing.

The court reached that conclusion on her own material. It cited her business website, which describes her as a “world renowned thought leader in quantum energy healing, spiritual psychology, nutrition, emotional transformation, and feminine wealth consciousness,” together with her more than 35,000 social media followers and her more than 100,000 customers in 90 countries.

What follows from it is long-settled First Amendment law. A public figure who sues for defamation cannot succeed simply by showing that a statement was false and damaging. They must prove actual malice — that the speaker knew the statement was false, or published it with reckless disregard for whether it was true — and, as the order sets out, must do so by clear and convincing evidence. The rule exists so that people who seek influence over the public cannot use libel law to shut down scrutiny by those who dealt with them. It is the protection that allows former members, their families and journalists to describe what they experienced.

Two findings from the record worth noting

A website claimed, then denied. The 22 May 2026 order records that in an August 2023 Position Statement filed in her criminal case, Wilson “proudly discussed creating the Exposing Family Abuse website for her advocacy work,” while in this case she denied creating it at all. Her counsel had redacted the website’s name from the public version of that statement; the court unsealed it, finding no reasonable basis for confidentiality “especially because the context of the public version nonetheless establishes a diametric inconsistency.” The court declined to impose sanctions — the earlier statement had not been sworn — but wrote that “this conduct is troubling,” and that at worst Wilson “intended to mislead this Court or Judge Mollway.” It made no finding of perjury.

Evidence that was not preserved. Wilson had alleged for years, publicly and in the case, that she held voicemail recordings of death threats. On 10 July 2026 the court excluded all evidence of those threats as a sanction under Rule 37(e), finding she “should have preserved the actual voicemail with its metadata.” Asked under oath in January 2025 whether she still had the phone the threats arrived on, she answered: “No. I’m like two phones past that now.” The court also excluded reference to the stalking she had alleged the same day, on the same basis; the minute order records that she did not oppose it.

Records: the full docket is public on CourtListener.

The Federal Criminal Case

United States v. Wilson, No. 1:19-cr-00105, United States District Court for the District of Hawai‘i. In December 2021 Wilson was sentenced to five years of probation for bankruptcy fraud.

In June 2025 the case was reassigned to Senior United States District Judge Helen Gillmor after Judge Susan Oki Mollway moved to inactive status. Wilson moved to have her probation terminated early. Both the United States Probation Office and the United States Attorney’s Office opposed, each citing claims that she had defrauded people while under supervision — allegations the court recorded as having required investigation but as not having been confirmed. On 20 June 2025 the motion was denied, the court finding that the nature of the offence, the need for deterrence, the need to promote respect for the law and the need to protect the public all weighed in favour of continued supervision. The five-year term runs to December 2026.

Records: the docket is public on CourtListener.

The Full Record: Court Matters 2005–2026

The entries below are the individual case records, in date order, with the filed documents attached where they are public.

Hawaii Courts Public Record