Update on Two Cases Where Anti-SLAPP Special Motions to Dismiss Have Been Filed

From Leslie Machado at LeClairRyan:

In January, I wrote about anti-SLAPP special motions to dismiss filed by the Trump Campaign and Roger Stone in response to a DC federal court suit alleging they “entered into an agreement with other parties, including agents of Russia and WikiLeaks, to have information stolen from the DNC publicly disseminated in a strategic way that would benefit the campaign to elect Mr. Trump as President.”

I noted the suit was assigned to Judge Huvelle, who had already ruled last October (in Deripaska v. Associated Press) that the Court of Appeals’ Manndecision did not “clearly and unmistakably” resolve the question of whether a federal court exercising diversity jurisdiction may apply the D.C. anti-SLAPP Act’s special motion to dismiss provision, so that the court was bound to follow the DC Circuit’s Abbas decision. Then, in January, Judge Huvelle ruled (in Democracy Partners v. Project Veritas Action Fund) the anti-SLAPP statute could not be applied in a DC federal court case based on federal question jurisdiction. As such, I wrote in May that:

There are still anti-SLAPP special motions to dismiss pending in at least three other DC federal court diversity cases (although one is in a case before Judge Huvelle, who it reasonably can be expected will adhere to her conclusion in Deripaska).