SLAPP-Blog — Public Participation Project

Pa. Senate Passes Anti-SLAPP Measure

Law360, Philadelphia (July 1, 2015, 3:14 PM ET) — The Pennsylvania Senate threw its overwhelming support on Tuesday to legislation that would authorize monetary penalties for plaintiffs found to have filed so-called strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP suits, designed to stifle criticism against businesses and developers.

Sen. Larry Farnese, D-Philadelphia, said that the legislation he sponsored would not only require courts to quickly hold hearings to determine a potential SLAPP suit’s legitimacy but also allow targets of frivolous litigation to recover damages.

State Anti-SLAPPEvan MascagniJuly 8, 2015Pennsylvania, State Anti-SLAPPComment

Florida's broader anti-SLAPP law effective July 1, 2015

From Phelps Dunbar LLP at Lexology:

"Effective July 1, 2015, Florida will have broader prohibitions against SLAPP suits, or “strategic lawsuits against public participation.” Many states have enacted anti-SLAPP laws to prevent companies and government entities from filing frivolous lawsuits against their critics. For example, when a citizen or consumer posts a negative comment about a governmental program or a company’s services, the entity subject to the criticism may choose to file a defamation or infringement lawsuit against the individual who posted the comment. Such lawsuits have become more prevalent due to the popularity of websites geared towards consumer reviews, such as yelp.com."

State Anti-SLAPPEvan MascagniJuly 1, 2015State Anti-SLAPP, FloridaComment

Washington State Says Its Anti-SLAPP Law Is Unconstitutional

From Mike Masnick at TechDirt:

"For years, we’ve talked about the importance of anti-SLAPP laws that help quickly toss out lawsuits whose sole purpose are to silence critics. A key point that we’ve made is the need for a federal anti-SLAPP law, because until then, we’re at the mercy of a patchwork of state laws. Some states have no anti-SLAPP law. Some have weak ones. A few have strong ones. In just the past month alone we’ve discussed Florida strengthening its anti-SLAPP law, and Nevada’s attempt to weaken its anti-SLAPP law. Meanwhile, a court in DC issued a ruling that greatly limited the effectiveness of DC’s anti-SLAPP law

Yelp review gets couple sued

A flooring company brought a defamation lawsuit against a Colorado couple for negative reviews they left on Yelp. The parties eventually settled the suit, but the dispute cost the defendant $65,000 in legal fees.

RCFP: Bill enhancing Florida's anti-SLAPP law heads to governor for approval

From Kimberly Chow at RCFP:

"A Florida bill that would revise the state’s narrow anti-SLAPP law to provide a greater level of protection for speakers against meritless lawsuits has passed both houses of the legislature and now awaits Gov. Rick Scott’s signature.

Florida’s anti-SLAPP law, Fla. Stat. § 768.295, currently only provides for the speedy dismissal of SLAPP suits when such frivolous suits are filed by government entities. In practice, “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” or SLAPPs, are filed by a wide range of plaintiffs, with far more deleterious effects on speakers than just those suits brought by the government.

State Anti-SLAPPEvan MascagniMay 6, 2015State Anti-SLAPP, FloridaComment

Nevada May Be About to Lose Its Great Anti-SLAPP Law

Another piece of the proposed changes to Nevada’s anti-SLAPP law, this time from our friends over at Techdirt:

"We’ve mentioned many times the importance of anti-SLAPP laws in protecting people who are being sued solely to try to shut them up. It’s still a travesty that we don’t have a federal anti-SLAPP law but are reliant on various state anti-SLAPP laws. In case you’re not familiar with them, SLAPP stands for “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.” Anti-SLAPP laws basically allow people who are sued to quickly get lawsuits dismissed when it’s obvious that the entire point of the lawsuit is to silence whoever is being sued, rather than for any legitimate legal purpose. For years, California was seen as having one of the best anti-SLAPP laws, but in recent years both Texas and Nevada upped the ante in anti-SLAPP laws, making them even stronger. Nevada’s had a particularly useful feature: it would award “reasonable costs, attorney’s fees and monetary relief” for defendants who were wrongfully hit with SLAPP suits. Basically, it provided a real deterrent against SLAPP suits.

State Anti-SLAPPEvan MascagniApril 20, 2015State Anti-SLAPP, NevadaComment

Why Are Nevada State Senators Trying to Eviscerate the State's Anti-SLAPP Statute

From our friend Popehat:

"In 2013 Nevada passed the strongest anti-SLAPP statutes in the United States. This statute was muscular. Not only did it cover a wide array of speech, and require substantial proof of the potential validity of a claim, it had frills like a potential $10,000 penalty on top of attorney fees for SLAPPers and a private cause of action so targets of SLAPP suits could sue their tormentors. My friend and colleague Marc Randazza, First Amendment badass, helped frame it, which is why it was so strong. It’s already proven effective in Nevada’s courts. It’s an excellent tool to protect free speech from meritless lawsuits.

So who in the Nevada Senate Judiciary Committee is trying to kill it, and why?"

State Anti-SLAPPEvan MascagniApril 17, 2015State Anti-SLAPP, Nevada Comment

Montana paper sued by city over open-records request wins in court

After The Billings Gazette filed a public records request on a potential tip about mishandling of public money at a Montana landfill, the city of Billings, MT, filed a lawsuit against the paper. The editor of the paper characterized the city’s legal response as a SLAPP suit. Though the state does not have an anti-SLAPP law, the newspaper won, and the city agreed to pay about $12,000 in attorneys’ fees.

State Anti-SLAPPEvan MascagniApril 14, 2015Montana, State Anti-SLAPP

Anti-SLAPP bill to go before Minnesota House committee

From Pioneer Press:

"Keith Mueller is pushing to change a state law to protect someone from being sued for calling the cops.

The law’s current language protecting public participation is too vague and needs to include reporting apparent unlawful conduct to police, he argues.

Mueller’s effort stems from his experience: He was sued by a man whose acts were the subject of a report to police.

State Anti-SLAPP, SLAPPs in the NewsEvan MascagniMarch 3, 2015SLAPPs in the News, State Anti-SLAPP, MinnesotaComment

Georgia Trial Court Limits the Protection of Georgia's Anti-SLAPP Statute

A Georgia court clarified the protection afforded by the state’s anti-SLAPP statute, noting that a media story not related to a “current governmental investigation” does not fall under the protection of the anti-SLAPP law, even if the story is the basis of a later investigation.

State Anti-SLAPPEvan MascagniFebruary 23, 2015Georgia, State Anti-SLAPP

New York Decision Denying Discovery of Doe Critics Casts Broad Doubts on Libel Suits over Consumer Reviews

From Paul Alan Levy at Public Citizen:

"The Appellate Division in New York has today affirmed the denial of a pre-litigation petition brought by Woodbridge Structured Funding seeking to compel Opinion Corp. to provide identifying information about the authors of two critical consumer reviews on its Pissed Consumer site.

Represented by Ron Coleman, Opinion Corp. invoked the First Amendment’s protection for anonymous speech and theconsensus requirement that would-be plaintiffs be required to present evidence in support of their claims, but the appeals court decided the case instead on the purely state-law ground that the consumer reviews lacked defamatory meaning."

Read more from Paul Levy at Public Citizen here.

State Anti-SLAPPEvan MascagniFebruary 20, 2015Consumer Speech, State Anti-SLAPPComment

The Case for Anti-SLAPP Legislation

Tracy Coenen recently wrote about her experience dealing with a SLAPP and advocating for states across the country to enact anti-SLAPP legislation.

http://www.sequenceinc.com/fraudfiles/2015/02/the-case-for-anti-slapp-legislation/

In addition to strong state anti-SLAPP laws, federal anti-SLAPP legislation is also needed to protect all Americans across the country.

State Anti-SLAPP, Federal Anti-SlappEvan MascagniFebruary 9, 2015State Anti-SLAPP, Federal Anti-SLAPP LegislationComment

2014: A Busy Year for Anti-SLAPP Litigation and Legislation

Laura Lee Prather, PPP Board member and partner at Haynes and Boone, LLP, recently co-authored a piece looking back at anti-SLAPP developments across the country in 2014.

Read the post from Law 360 here.

Ohio should stop lawsuits that target free speech

Benjamin J. Marrison of the Columbus Dispatch recently wrote a column advocating for anti-SLAPP legislation in Ohio:

“One of the things readers tell us they value most about The Dispatch is our commitment to watchdog, investigative reporting.

We have intelligent, savvy readers. Based on feedback over the years, it’s clear you appreciate the difficulty of watchdog journalism because you understand the time commitment it requires to dig deep into a subject and the blowback we get from those who are the subjects of our investigative efforts.

State Anti-SLAPPEvan MascagniJanuary 5, 2015Ohio, State Anti-SLAPPComment

Court agrees that Google’s search results qualify as free speech

From MEGAN GEUSS at Ars Technica:

The regulation of Google’s search results has come up from time to time over the past decade, and although the idea has gained some traction in Europe (most recently with “right to be forgotten” laws), courts and regulatory bodies in the US have generally agreed that Google’s search results are considered free speech. That consensus was upheld last Thursday, when a San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled in favor of Google’s right to order its search results as it sees fit.

The owner of a website called CoastNews, S. Louis Martin, argued that Google was unfairly putting CoastNews too far down in search results, while Bing and Yahoo were turning up CoastNews in the number one spot. CoastNews claimed that violated antitrust laws. It also took issue with Google’s refusal to deliver ads to its website after CoastNews posted photographs of a nudist colony in the Santa Cruz mountains.

State Anti-SLAPPEvan MascagniNovember 19, 2014State Anti-SLAPP, CaliforniaComment

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