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. Breitbart, where he stated “the legislative history makes clear that the D.C. Anti-SLAPP Act is substantive,” and argue that, as such, it applies in federal court.
