Academic Articles, Books, & Model Bills

Jerome Braun, Increasing SLAPP Protection: Unburdening the Right of Petition in California, 32 U.C. DAVIS L. REV 965 (1998-1999).

Comprehensive overview of California anti-SLAPP legislation and history, with thoughtful suggestions for improvement and accompanying commentary.

Draft federal anti-SLAPP law, largely premised on George Pring and Penelope Canan’s Model Bill, infra.

Jim Demint and J. David Woodard, Why We Whisper: Restoring Our Right to Say It's Wrong, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2008.

Conservative perspective about the use of SLAPPs. Reviews SLAPPs that have been brought against conservative causes and suggests solutions to end SLAPPs, including fee-shifting provisions for prevailing SLAPP defendants.

Michael Froomkin, Building the Bottom Up from the Top Down (February 6, 2009)

University of Miami Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2009-02.

Stephen Kling, Missouri’s New Anti-SLAPP Law, JOURNAL OF THE MISSOURI BAR, Vol. 61, 113 (May-June 2005).

Review of the Missouri anti-SLAPP law.

Sean McAllister, SLAPP Resource Center, The Citizen Participation Act of 2000

Unpublished draft, on file with the Public Participation Project.

Examines the nexus between state and federal law where SLAPPs are tried in a federal district court sitting in diversity.

Reviews the changes in Congress’s Fourteenth Amendment enforcement powers in the wake of City of Boerne v. Flores, supra.

Examines Oklahoma’s somewhat narrow SLAPP protections and suggests improvements.

Jeff McGoff, Exploring the Boundary of the Noerr-Pennington Doctrine in the Adjudicative Process, 34 U. MEM. L. REV. 429 (2004).

Good short summary of the Noerr-Pennington Doctrine and its limitations.

PRING AND CANAN MODEL BILL, in PRING AND CANAN,

supra, at 201-220.

This model bill provided the structure and much of the content for this draft bill.

MEDIA LIBEL LAW: 50-STATE SURVEY. (Media Law Resource Center, Inc., ed.,).

Excellent brief review of media libel law in each state and territory. New edition published every year. See for more information about state immunity laws.

Pound Civil Institute for Justice publication.

Rory Ryan, No Welcome Mat, No Problem? Federal-Question Jurisdiction after Grable, 80 ST. JOHN’S L. REV. 621 (2006).

Explores the Supreme Court historical jurisprudence about jurisdictional issues leading up to the Grable decision, which affirmed that federal courts may constitutionally have jurisdiction over state law claims, even where no federal cause of action is alleged.

GEORGE W. PRING AND PENELOPE CANAN, SLAPPS: GETTING SUED FOR SPEAKING OUT (Temple University Press 1996).

Pring and Canan coined the term “SLAPP” and were the first to research and document the phenomenon. This book provides an overview of SLAPPs, a review of state legislation existing at publication, and a model bill.

Laura Sager and Stephen Cohen, How the Income Tax Undermines Civil Rights Law, 75 S.CAL. L. REV. 1075 (2000)

Informative discussion of the relationship between tax law and civil rights remedies.

Kathryn Tate, California’s Anti-SLAPP Legislation: A Summary of and Commentary on its Operation and Scope, 33 LOY L.A. L. REV. 801 (2000).

Comprehensive overview of the state of the California anti-SLAPP law as of 2000, with a discussion of George Pring and Penelope Canan’s recommendations to the California Judicial Council for improvements on the law.

David Schwartz, The Federal Arbitration Act and the Power of Congress over State Courts, 83 OR. L. REV. 541, 545 (2005). 

Discussion of Congress’s limited ability to regulate state court procedure.

Extremely thoughtful model state bill with notes on the reasoning behind the bill’s provisions and suggestions for passing legislation.

On the right of petitioning.

 

Draft bill proposed by the Uniform Law Commission for states to model.