SLAPP Suits Continue to Attract Media Attention

What did the five fingers say to the disgruntled online commentator?

The New York Times reported Tuesday on the rise in strategic lawsuits against public participation, better known as “SLAPPs.” We first reported on SLAPPs back in March, noting that “SLAPPs can cause significant expense and anxiety.”

As the Times explains, SLAPPs are “meritless defamation suits filed by business or government officials against citizens who speak out against them,” which are not intended to succeed on the merits, “but rather to intimidate critics.” Small businesses in particular seem to be filing SLAPPs with greater frequency as disgruntled customers find new opportunities to voice complaints online on review sites such as Yelp, which the Times reports has spawned several SLAPPs.

The article notes that SLAPPs pose a unique threat to free speech because defendants often fold in the face of even bogus claims after concluding that it will be easier and cheaper to remove controversial comments than to fight for the right to keep them online. Even fire-breathing First Amendment attorney Marc Randazza of the Legal Satyricon concedes as much, saying that a defendant-friendly outcome he recently obtained in Florida, in which a car dealership backed away from suing an angry customer, was unusual.

(Of course, if you were counsel for the car dealership in question and you received the letter Randazza sent on behalf of his client, which is already infamous online, you might have encouraged the dealership to back down too.)

The article notes, as we did, that Congress is considering passing a federal anti-SLAPP law that would require plaintiffs whose suits are determined to be SLAPPs to pay defendants’ legal fees.

SLAPP shot by Flickr user skippyjon.