Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has failed to bring forward enough evidence to support his claims that a Cape Elizabeth man made several defamatory statements about him on social media and in blog posts, a judge has ruled.

Kennedy, who ran for president before dropping out of the race in August 2024 and was named secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by President Donald Trump in February, filed a lawsuit last year against David Vickrey, a retired businessman and blogger.

He alleged that Vickrey had made false claims on the social media site X (formerly Twitter) and “in statements to third parties and the public” saying Kennedy opposes all vaccines, that he helped cause a measles outbreak in Samoa and that he wanted to cause the death of Black people.

Cumberland County Superior Court Justice Thomas McKeon ruled Sept. 19 to grant Vickrey’s request for a summary judgement, which an attorney for Vickrey said dismisses the case.

“Plaintiff has failed to oppose defendant’s statement of material facts by citation to admissible record evidence that would create a factual dispute as required,” McKeon wrote in his order.

An attorney for Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment Monday. Meanwhile, Vickrey said he is relieved by the judge’s ruling.

“I’m glad the court decided in my favor,” he said. “There was really no merit to the whole case.”

Vickrey, a longtime blogger for the progressive website Daily Kos, had argued that he did not say many of the things Kennedy claimed he said, that the things he did say did not qualify as defamation and that one of the statements in question fell outside a two-year statute of limitations on defamation.

Meanwhile, Kennedy’s attorney, Terry Mitrenga, had written recently in court filings that Vickrey’s request for a summary judgement was a “rehashing” of arguments that had previously been rejected and should be denied again, and said more time was needed for their side to produce evidence.

In his order, McKeon addressed six statements Kennedy accused Vickrey of saying about him and which Kennedy said were defamatory, all of which McKeon concluded Vickrey never wrote or said.

He also noted in his order that Kennedy had failed to properly submit the affidavit needed to back up his case and did not explain what further evidence discovery would be necessary if he were given more time.

In one case, McKeon addressed a dispute over a 2020 blog post by Vickrey about Kennedy’s speech at a rally in Germany that Vickrey had written was organized by right-wing extremists, including a neo-Nazi group.

“Plaintiff offers no evidence that there exists a defamatory implication that plaintiff joining the protest as a speaker meant that he joined the sponsoring group as a member of that group,” McKeon wrote. “The only inference that could be made is that Kennedy and these groups shared the same position on government Covid vaccination requirements… The court does not see a defamatory implication.”