SLAPP Blog
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Youtube and Client Solicitation: Lawyers Beware!
Very interesting new (unpublished) opinion from the First Appellate District with significant implications for lawyer advertising and client solicitation, especially with regard to Internet and other mass media solicitation. Check out Kate Moser’s analysis on Law.com: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202540890419&slreturn=1. The opinion can be read here: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/A127544.PDF. The case involved a lawyer, Thomas Howard Clarke, Jr., who recorded and posted a Youtube video clip in which he...
read moreJay Leno SLAPPed?
Last week, Jay Leno joked on his television show that the Golden Temple of Armritsar in India, a holy site to the Sikh religion, was the summer home of wealthy presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The joke caused a bit of an uproar, with many charging Leno with making an insensitive and derogatory jab at the Sikh community. Now, Leno and NBC have been sued for defamation by a Bakersfield-area Sikh man, Dr. Randeep Dhillon and his organization, Bol Punjabi All Regions Community Organization, for making the joke. ...
read moreCASP attorney quoted in Businessweek article on CalPERS lawsuit against S&P and Moody’s
Paul Clifford, attorney at the California Anti-SLAPP Project, was quoted in a Businessweek article today discussing the California Public Employees’ Retirement System’s $1 billion lawsuit over Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service Inc. ratings of structured investment vehicles. The judge’s ruling in the case rejected a request by the rating companies to dismiss the case under the California anti-SLAPP law. “It’s not a ruling on the merits of the case,” said Paul Clifford, an attorney at the...
read moreLawsuit Contemplated by City of L.A. Against Occupy Protesters Could Be SLAPP
Over the holidays, news broke that the City of Los Angeles is contemplating a lawsuit against the Occupy L.A. protesters in an attempt to recover the costs of policing (and dispersing) the protests, as well as purported property damage caused by the protesters. (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/12/occupy-la-lawsuit-financial-damages.html.) If the City of L.A. decides to bring the suit, an interesting question will arise as to whether such suit (or suits) is subject to the anti-SLAPP law. The Occupy protesters will obviously have...
read moreSupreme Court Denies Review on Decision Dismissing Suit Against California GOP
Last week, the California Supreme Court denied review of a decision upholding the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by former Republican Party volunteer and state party chairman candidate David Douglas Fennell, against the California Republican Party and various prominent members of the party. The trial court had dismissed the lawsuit under the anti-SLAPP law. Fennell’s suit, brought without a lawyer, was based on charges of defamation, retaliation, and extortion, among others. Fennell alleged that party officials retaliated...
read more“To Catch a Predator” Lawsuit Partially Dismissed Under Anti-SLAPP Law
NBC Universal, Inc., succeeded in dismissing under the California anti-SLAPP law a defamation claim brought by plaintiff Anurag Tiwari after Tiwari was featured on an episode of NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” TV series. The show involves hidden camera investigations by the newsmagazine program Dateline NBC, in which the NBC investigators impersonate underage youth and lure men who contact them over the internet for sexual liaisons into sting operations, where the men are then arrested by law enforcement. Tiwari was one such...
read moreCity Councilwoman to pay $12K to Crescent City
City Councilwoman Donna Westfall has been ordered to pay over $12,000 to Crescent City by a U.S. District Court after Crescent City was successfully able to bring an anti-SLAPP motion after it was sued by Westfall. “Ironically, Westfall’s suit alleged that the city trounced on the First Amendment when fellow council members censured her for an ethics violation after she claimed corruption in connection with the expansion of the wastewater treatment plant.” Read more on this case from Del Norte Triplicate:...
read moreAnti-SLAPP Motion Filed in Response to Request for Restraining Order
Alex George of the Calaveras Enterprise recently covered an anti-SLAPP motion that was filed by Rancho Calveras resident Bill Crane in response to a request for a restraining order against him. Crane and Supervisor Darren Spellman engaged in an argument on Nov. 28 at the Calaveras County Elections Department, which eventually led to Spellman seeking a restraining order against Crane. “Supervisor Spellman’s efforts to obtain a restraining order against Mr. Crane are nothing more than an attempt by Spellman to chill and trample upon...
read moreIs A Public Figure’s Sex Life A Matter of Public Interest Under the Anti-SLAPP Statute?
In light of the recent sex scandal involving Herman Cain, Adrianos Facchetti posted an article on the California Defamation Law Blog addressing whether or not a public figure’s sex life is a matter of public interest under the CA anti-SLAPP statute. “Political and sports figures have recently argued that their sex lives are not a matter of public interest. Consider, for example, Herman Cain: in response to allegations from Ginger White that she had a decade-plus affair with him, Mr. Cain’s attorney, Lin Wood, said that those kinds of...
read moreC.A. Applies Anti-SLAPP Statute to Proceeding in Foreign Court
“The C.A. for this district yesterday threw out a malicious prosecution case against a Santa Monica attorney based on his submission of an affidavit during judicial proceedings in Zimbabwe. Div. Five said the filing by Donald C. Randolph of Randolph & Associates qualified as a writing made in connection with an issue under consideration by a judicial body for purposes of protection under Code of Civil Procedure Sec.425.16, the anti-SLAPP statute.” Read the full article from the Metropolitan News-Enterprise...
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