SLAPP-Blog
PPP joins Reporters Committee and asks Texas Supreme Court to allow anti-SLAPP appeal
The Public Participation Project recently joined several other news media and public advocacy organizations to file a friend-of-the-court brief with the Texas Supreme Court, asking the judges to clarify the scope of a defendant’s right to appeal orders under the state’s anti-SLAPP law. The right to appeal when an anti-SLAPP motion is denied, which was rejected in the case at hand by the appellate court, is consistent with the legislature’s...
read moreHawaii Court of Appeals Decision Shows Need for Federal Anti-SLAPP Law
Much narrower than many state anti-SLAPP laws, Hawaii’s anti-SLAPP law protects only against claims involving “oral or written testimony submitted or provided to a governmental body during the course of a governmental proceeding.” Haw. Rev. Stat. 634F-1 (2011). A recent decision by the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals held that communicating to a mayor is not ‘testimony’ in a ‘proceeding’...
read moreDid Donald Trump Just SLAPP Bill Maher?
Last week, Donald Trump filed a breach of contract lawsuit against comedian Bill Maher in Los Angeles Superior Court. The lawsuit stems from a joke that Maher on an appearance on Jay Leno poking fun at Trump’s birther claims about President Obama. Maher said that he would donate $5 million to a charity if Trump could prove he wasn’t the “the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan.” Trump then sent Maher a copy of his birth certificate, and when Maher refused to pay the $5 million, Trump filed the breach of...
read moreYelp Defeats Legal Challenge to Its User Review Filter
PPP Board Member Eric Goldman, Director of the High Tech Law Institute and law professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, had a piece published on Forbes’ website today discussing a recent legal victory for Yelp, in which a judge ruled that the case against it was a SLAPP. “Yelp ($YELP) uses an automated review filter to suppress some user reviews of businesses. The review filter’s criteria aren’t publicly disclosed, and some businesses feel that legitimate positive reviews from happy customers are unfairly hidden. One...
read moreRomney’s National Finance Co-Chairman Sues Mother Jones
Frank VanderSloot, CEO of marketing company Melaleuca, is suing Mother Jones magazine because he contends that he was defamed by an article that depicted him as a “gay-basher.” VanderSloot, who served as Mitt Romney’s national finance co-chairman, filed the lawsuit in Idaho Falls’ 7th District court and said that a February 2012 article about him and two tweets promoting it prompted national criticism. Vandersloot’s recent case is a great example of the need for a federal anti-SLAPP law. If VanderSloot had filed...
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