John Oliver’s brutal takedown of a U.S. healthcare manager who made the Last Week Tonight host want to “punch a hole in the wall” has been protected by law.
U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, dismissed a defamation suit brought against Oliver, 49, by the subject of one of his HBO show’s “scathing critiques” on Tuesday.
The win maintains Last Week Tonight‘s perfect record against defamation lawsuits intact.
Dr. Brian Morley, an Iowa healthcare manager who worked for the state’s privatized Medicaid program, was a key subject of Oliver’s damning segment about Medicaid. In his 2025 defamation filing, Morley claimed that Oliver had “feigned outrage” at him “for ratings and profits.”
In his 2024 episode exploring how privatized state Medicaid programs across the U.S. cut costs to the detriment of their patients, Oliver slammed Morley for his rationale on why the doctor had sometimes left patients with cerebral palsy, who could not clean themselves, “dirty” after bowel movements for “a couple of days” at a time.
“People have bowel movements every day where they don’t completely clean themselves, and we don’t fuss too much,” Morley says about a patient in the audio testimonial shown in the segment, drawing an audible gasp from the audience. “People are allowed to be dirty... You know, I would allow him to be dirty for a couple of days.”
“I’ll be honest, when I first heard that, I thought ‘That has to be taken out of context,’” Oliver admitted. “There is no way a doctor, a licensed physician, would testify in a hearing that he thinks it’s OK if people have s--t on them for days.”
Oliver noted that his team obtained the full hearing to double-check that Morley’s statements had not been misrepresented.
“He said it, he meant it, and it made me want to punch a hole in the wall,” Oliver declared. “F--- that doctor with a rusty canoe; I hope he gets tetanus of the balls!”
“If he has a problem with my language there, I’d say, ‘I’m allowed to be dirty,’” Oliver quipped. “People are allowed to be a little dirty sometimes; apparently that’s doctor’s orders.”
In his suit, Morley argued that Oliver and Last Week Tonight misled viewers into falsely conflating the experiences of two Iowa patients with cerebral palsy because one wore a diaper and one did not.
“In this Court’s view, the trauma and loss of human dignity that befalls a man with cerebral palsy who has trouble cleaning himself and is left for days in his own fecal matter is the same, regardless of whether or not he wears a diaper,” Judge Abrams wrote in her opinion, where she “rigidly” declined Morley’s argument.
The win cements the 23-time Emmy winner as an equally prolific defendant, with a flawless record in defamation lawsuits.
Oliver, who routinely calls out individuals and corporations in his scathing show, even dedicated an entire episode of Last Week Tonight to SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) lawsuits, which he has experienced firsthand numerous times.
“These are frivolous suits with no legal merits specifically designed to stifle public debate or dissent, and these happen all the time,” Oliver said in the 2019 episode, after describing how he had successfully thwarted a coal baron’s attempts to silence him.
Representatives for Oliver and Last Week Tonight did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
