NEW YORK — A federal appeals court has revived Sarah Palin’s libel case against The New York Times, citing errors by a lower court judge, particularly his decision to dismiss the lawsuit while a jury was deliberating.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan wrote last week that Judge Jed Rakoff’s decision in February 2022 to dismiss the lawsuit mid-deliberations improperly intruded on the jury’s work.

It also found that the erroneous exclusion of evidence, an inaccurate jury instruction and an erroneous response to a question from the jury tainted the jury’s decision to rule against Palin. It declined, however, to grant Palin’s request to force Rakoff off the case on grounds he was biased against her. The 2nd Circuit said she had offered no proof.

The libel lawsuit by Palin, a onetime Republican vice presidential candidate and former governor of Alaska, centered on the newspaper’s 2017 editorial falsely linking her campaign rhetoric to a 2011 mass shooting that wounded then-Rep. Gabby Giffords of Arizona, which Palin asserted damaged her reputation and career.

The Times acknowledged its editorial was inaccurate but said it quickly corrected errors it called an “honest mistake” that were never meant to harm Palin.

Shane Vogt, a lawyer for Palin, said in an email that Palin was “very happy” with the decision, “which is a significant step forward in the process of holding publishers accountable for content that misleads readers and the public in general.”

The 2nd Circuit, in a ruling written by Judge John Walker, reversed the jury verdict, along with Rakoff’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit while jurors were deliberating.

Despite his ruling, Rakoff let jurors finish deliberating and render their verdict, which went against Palin.

The appeals court noted that Rakoff’s ruling made credibility determinations, weighed evidence, and ignored facts or inferences that a reasonable juror could plausibly find supported Palin’s case.