Tag Archives: memorandum
Atlantic Magazine Responds to Defamation Suit With Anti-SLAPP Motion
The Atlantic Monthly Group and a correspondent have filed an anti-SLAPP/Rule12(b)(6) motion in DC federal court in response to a Complaint by George Boley. The pro se Complaint, filed January 22, 2013, alleges that statements in a January 2010 article and February 2010 follow-up post on the Atlantic website defamed him by stating that he was a warlord in his native Liberia. It seeks compensatory and punitive damages. The defendants’ brief in support of their anti-SLAPP and Rule 12(b)(6) motions first chronicles Boley’s tenure as leader of the Liberian Peace Council, citing to and quoting from a U.S. State Department … [ CONTINUE READING ]
What are “private” vs “public” interests under DC anti-SLAPP statute?
We should get more insight into the answer to that question after the DC Superior Court rules in the pending case of Campbell v. CGI Group, Inc. because, after attending last Thursday’s oral argument, that is the issue on which the anti-SLAPP motion filed by Compass Solutions will turn. A quick reminder on how we got here. According to the Complaint filed by Campbell, Compass allegedly contacted her supervisor and stated that she was engaging in improper and unethical conduct, which led to her termination. Campbell alleged that the true purpose of the communication was to remove her from her position (the Chief Operating Officer for the … [ CONTINUE READING ]
National Review SLAPPs at Mann climate change libel suit
As I predicted last month, Michael Mann’s suit against the National Review, Competitive Enterprise Institute and two of their contributors, has resulted in an anti-SLAPP motion filed by the defendants, along with a companion Rule 12(b)(6) motion.
Another anti-SLAPP Motion Filed In Response to Former DC Official’s Defamation Suit
At the same time as former DC employee Eric Payne is opposing an anti-SLAPP motion filed by the District of Columbia, another former high-ranking employee of the District of Columbia has also been hit with an anti-SLAPP motion in response to her defamation suit. On November 21, 2012, Jennifer Campbell, the former District of Columbia Chief Operating Officer for the Department of Health Care Finance, filed suit against three companies that she alleged made defamatory statements about her, which she alleges directly led to her termination by the District of Columbia.
Eric Payne Responds to District of Columbia’s anti-SLAPP Motion
Eric Payne, the former contracting director of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, has filed his opposition to the anti-SLAPP motion filed by the District of Columbia and his former boss, Natwar Gandhi. Unlike Dan Snyder and Bradlee Dean, who responded to anti-SLAPP motions by arguing that the SLAPP statute violated the Home Rule (here and here), Payne’s opposition does not attack the statute’s constitutionality. Instead, Payne argues that the statute should not apply because he is not a well-heeled individual aiming to punish a private person, which, he argues, was the purpose of the statute. While Payne’s description … [ CONTINUE READING ]
Another judge to decide if anti-SLAPP statute applies in federal court
In response to a libel complaint filed by Yasser Abbas, one of the sons of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, the defendants have filed an anti-SLAPP motion and a separate motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. (The law firm representing Schanzer is the same one that filed an anti-SLAPP motion on behalf of the City Paper in response to the suit brought by Dan Snyder. Snyder ultimately dismissed his suit before the court ruled on the anti-SLAPP motion).
Maddow and NBC Move to Dismiss Second Dean Suit
Rachel Maddow and related NBC defendants today moved to dismiss the duplicative federal court suit filed by Dean and others. This second anti-SLAPP motion, necessitated because Dean is forum shopping in federal court instead of litigating his pending case in Superior Court, makes many of the arguments previously made by the defendants in the Superior Court action. Because the case is now pending in federal court, however, and in light of the opinion in 3M v. Boulter, the defendants argue that the anti-SLAPP statute clearly applies in federal court. They quote from Judge Leon’s “Statement of Reasons” in Sherrod v. … [ CONTINUE READING ]
Maddow and NBC Defendants Move to Stay Second Dean Suit
Rachel Maddow and related NBC defendants today moved to stay the federal court lawsuit filed by Bradley Dean until an identical suit can be resolved in the Superior Court. As I previously explained, on February 21, Dean voluntarily moved to dismiss his Superior Court action, explaining that he intended to refile it in federal court “due to the Court’s recent decision in 3M v. Boulter, No. 11-cv-1527 (RLW).” True to his word, he filed his federal court complaint, which is virtually identical to his Superior Court complaint, on February 21. (The case was randomly assigned to Judge Leon, which is … [ CONTINUE READING ]
Anti-SLAPP Statute Raised in Another High-Profile Federal Court Case
Lanny Davis and his related companies, which are defendants in a defamation suit pending in DC federal court that is captioned 3M v. Boulter, today filed a motion to dismiss the suit under DC’s anti-SLAPP statute. The complaint, which was filed on June 28, 2011, alleges that, in early 2007, a 3M subsidiary acquired all of the outstanding shares of Acolyte, a British company engaged in the business of developing and marketing products whose aim was to detect certain dangerous microorganisms. It alleges that, at the time of the acquisition, Acolyte’s only commercially viable product was a device that allegedly allowed … [ CONTINUE READING ]
