A local blogger faced a lawsuit filed by Wicomico County Department of Corrections Director Douglas C. Devenyns.
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Techdirt writes about an Orlando police chief who threatened a blogger critical of her.
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A $5 million defamation lawsuit was filed by a Madison County Engineer accusing an unknown party of posting information on an Internet blog.
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A local landowner was sued by the Middle Snake Tamarac Rivers Watershed District, a local government entity, for expressing an opinion critical of the District's flood control plans.
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A lawyer for a Virginia resident suing a local newspaper for defamation served a subpoena on a blogger who publishes cvillenews.com, a community news blog about Charlottesville, Virginia.
Read MoreIn a paradigmatic CyberSLAPP, Butler University in Indiana brought suit against an anonymous poster who had made comments about the school’s dean. The school filed a libel suit, which some commentators called “hopeless,” in January of 2009.
Read MoreIn 1992, deputy sheriff Gary Spencer shot and killed a citizen during execution of a search warrant in California. Following an investigation by the district attorney, the deputy was exonerated.However, the district attorney’s public report of the investigation questioned the veracity of the affidavit supporting the search warrant, suggesting that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was “motivated, at least in part, by a desire to seize and forfeit the ranch for the government…. Based in part upon the possibility of forfeiture, Spencer obtained a search warrant that was not supported by probable cause.”
Read MoreIn California, the Monterey Plaza Hotel sued the Hotel Employees Local 483 after a member of the union made comments about firings conducted by the hotel. The union successfully invoked California’s anti-SLAPP statute to quickly dismiss the case.
Read MoreIn 2000, hog producer Furnas County Farms in Nebraska sued two local farmers for defamation arising from written comments the farmers had filed about Furnas’ environmental record with state regulators. The farmers countersued under the Nebraska anti-SLAPP law, and in 2005, a jury rejected Furnas’ defamation claims and ordered it to pay $900,000 in damages plus legal fees.
Read MoreIn 2004, Sharper Image sued Consumers Union for its poor review of a Sharper Image air cleaning system in Consumer Reports. CU successfully invoked the California anti-SLAPP law to dismiss the case.
Read MoreIn 2007, Smithfield foods filed a federal lawsuit against the United Food and Commercial workers, claiming that the union orchestrated a public smear campaign to hurt Smithfield’s business as a method of extorting the company and alleging $5 million in damages. Part of the “smear campaign” was the encouragement of local government entities to censure Smithfield’s practices.
Read MoreIn 1990, the California housing rights organization Eden Council for Hope and Opportunity (ECHO) assisted an African-American woman in filing a complaint with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and in prosecuting a small claims court action against her landlords.
Read MoreIn Washington state, in 1986, police entered the homes of two Roma (Gypsy) families on a faulty warrant and searched family members – including a baby – who were not the subjects of the warrant. The families sought $59 million in damages, and the city and county countersued in federal court, alleging violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
Read MoreIn 2006, a woman brought suit against Sacha Baron Cohen, Channel 4 Television network, and HBO’s Da Ali G Show, claiming that Cohen, while playing the role of “Ali G”, libeled her by name during a spoof interview with historian Gore Vidal.
Read MoreIn Tennessee, the Clarksville Property Rights Coalition (CPRC), a grassroots group formed to fight the eminent domain abuse, ran an ad in the local newspaper criticizing elected officials and developers for backing a redevelopment plan including eminent domain. The ad said, in part, “This Redevelopment Plan is of the developers, by the developers, and for the developers.”
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