SLAPP

Chink in Armor of Communications Decency Act?

Sarah Jones

Former Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader Sarah Jones won her defamation lawsuit against the gossip website TheDirty.com on Thursday in federal court, winning an award of $338,000. Whether she will ever collect any money is a different issue, but some see the decision as groundbreaking since the Plaintiff got around the Communications Decency Act.

Jones, 28, sued in 2009 after TheDirty.com published comments alleging she had slept with all of the Bengals, and had sexually transmitted diseases. The first trial ended in a deadlock, when the jurors were unable to unanimously agree whether the posts about Jones having sex with all the Bengals players and likely having sexually transmitted diseases were substantially false.

The case caught the attention of defamation attorneys after U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman ruled the website was not shielded from liability by the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996. Many thought the ruling was a departure from all other rulings protecting website operators who use third-party content, and no doubt you will see this case reported as the first chink in the CDA’s armor, but I’ll explain why it is nothing new.

Whomever posts a defamatory comment on a website is always liable for the posting. The CDA protects a website operator from liability for third-party postings, but the website operator is still liable for his own postings, and that was the case here. The “shtick” of TheDirty is for visitors to post horrible comments about people, and the host, Nik Richie, then throws in his two cents worth. It was Richie who commented that Jones had slept with every player on the team, so of course he can be held liable for his own comments.

As evidenced by the first mistrial, on a different day with a different jury, the result could have been very different, and this could very well be reversed on appeal. As I have stated here many times, context is everything. A statement is only defamatory if it is offered as a true fact as opposed to being a joke or satire. When Richie makes the claim that Jones has slept with every player on the team, how would he be in a position to know that, and can it really be taken as a true statement that she slept with EVERY player on the team?

Complicating the matter is Jones’ history. I wrote here about the cannibal who sued because he was called a thief. It’s hard to argue that you have lost reputation for being falsely accused of being a thief when you are an admitted cannibal. Here, plaintiff is same Sarah Jones who gained national attention as a teacher for her dalliances with an under-aged student, for which she was sentenced to two years in prison (suspended).

Understanding the Wall of Wrong — Shaheed Sadeghi v. Delilah Snell

Shaheed Sadeghi and the wall of wrong

Shaheen Sadeghi and the Wall of Wrong.

I just wish counsel would run their defamation cases past me before filing. Here is a tale of a SLAPP that should have been spotted a mile away.

The tale starts with an article in OC Weekly. The article was about a guy named Shaheen Sadeghi. The article was extremely favorable to Sadeghi, referring to him as the “Curator of Cool” and discussing his amazing success in Orange County. OC Weekly even put his visage on the cover of the paper. Truly, it was a positive article that most would kill for.

But everyone has their detractors, and Sadeghi’s was a woman named Delilah Snell. After disclosing that Snell happens to be the girlfriend of a OC Weekly editor, the article reports on a dustup between Snell and Sadeghi, as told by Snell. Here is what the article said:

Still, some say Sadeghi will do whatever it takes to succeed. Delilah Snell, owner of Road Less Traveled, a shop in Santa Ana that sells environmentally friendly gifts and home goods, met with him in 2008 to discuss an opportunity to move to the Camp. (Full disclosure: Snell is the girlfriend of OC Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano.) She says the rent rate he gave was way too high, at least triple what she was paying, and she declined the offer. Then, she claims, he made a threat. “He basically said to me, ‘If you don’t move into my center, I will copy your business,'” she says.

Snell, co-founder of the Patchwork Indie Arts & Crafts Festival and a pioneer in Orange County’s eco-movement, believes her store is the model for the Camp’s SEED People’s Market, an airy, 12,000-square-foot gallery-type outlet that sells sustainable products and handmade crafts. Sadeghi owns the store with his wife, Linda. Snell claims that SEED has approached many of the vendors featured at Road Less Traveled and even used a photo of her shop in a promotional email sent out to customers. (The Weekly has a copy of the email.)

The article then goes on to tell Sadeghi’s side of the story:

Of Snell’s accusations, Sadeghi responds, “I think she’s full of it.” He says his business plan for SEED was dated “five years before she developed a business plan.”

“It’s a whole different store, whole different vibe,” he says, “and it has nothing to do with Road Less Traveled.”

The article then returns to singing the praises of Sadeghi, providing examples of how he is beloved by his tenants at his business centers like The Lab in Costa Mesa.

Sadeghi sued Snell in Orange County Superior Court, alleging in his complaint that Snell “orally accused Mr. Sadeghi of threatening to copy Ms. Snell’s business idea and plan if Ms. Snell did not move into Plaintiff’s retail center.” Sadeghi then alleged causes of action for slander, slander per se, libel, libel per se, invasion of privacy/false light, intentional interference with economic prospective advantage (sic), negligent interference with economic prospective advantage (sic), unfair competition, and injunctive relief. Whew! All arising from the statements Snell allegedly made to the OC Weekly, claiming that Sadeghi had said “If you don’t move into my center, I will copy your business.”

A Quick Aside to Discuss the “Wall of Wrong”.

A potential client will call me, and during the call will tell me about 20 evil deeds committed by the defendant. They have been horribly wronged, and they want to sue. Fair enough, but for a legal action each wrongful deed must be viewed independently to determine if it is actionable. I call the wrongful acts the “Wall of Wrong,” and each wrongful act is an item on that wall. I explain to the client that to determine if there is a case, we must walk up to the wall, take down each item and examine it independently to see if it will support an action. If not, it is tossed away never to be discussed again.

The reason this exercise is so important is because the client has a perception of being slammed by the defendant, and is absolutely convinced that all that wrongdoing must equate to an action, but when all the conduct that does not support the action is stripped away, the client will often see that what is left remaining is pretty petty.

Some prospective clients simply cannot perform this analysis. There is something in their genes that prevents them from taking anything off the table. It is sometimes the case that the defamation has been going on for years, meaning that many of the statements will be outside the statute of limitations (SOL). The caller continues to provide examples that cannot be the basis of an action, even after I ask that the examples be limited to the past year.

Another common scenario is where some aspect of the “wrongs” has been determined, but the caller cannot separate the past issue from the current issue. For example, the caller was arrested for and convicted of domestic violence. They serve their jail sentence, and upon release, want to renew their relationship with their children. However, their ex fights the proposed visitation schedule, and they call me wanting to sue for what the ex said in her court declaration, and wants to include a claim for malicious prosecution for the original domestic violence case.

Those two separate wrongs must be viewed individually. The proposed malicious prosecution action is dead on arrival, because that claim requires proof that the matter was resolved in the plaintiff’s favor. In our hypothetical, the plaintiff went to jail, so that required element is missing. And as to the false statements in the declaration, any statements made in relation to a court action are absolutely privileged, and cannot be the basis of a defamation action.

So back to Mr. Sadeghi. Let’s take him to the Wall of Wrong to see if he has a viable defamation action. Continue reading

Show Some Love for California’s Anti-SLAPP Statute

A real Jones for the Basketball coach

Not the coach in question.

I get frequent calls from people who have run afoul of the anti-SLAPP statute, basically asking, “what can we do about this terrible law?”

Here’s the deal. Every law eventually gets subverted. The Americans With Disabilities Act sounded like a great idea, but then you ended up with attorneys who use it as an extortion racket, forcing fast food restaurants to pay thousands because a counter was 17 ½ inches high instead of 18.

So it is with California’s anti-SLAPP statute. It is a great statute, and for the most part attorneys have not found an effective way to misuse it, except for right to appeal an adverse decision, which many now use as a delaying tactic. Opposing counsel in one of my cases recently brought a motion for permission to file a very late (by two years) anti-SLAPP motion on the eve of trial, and when the motion was quite properly denied, then filed an appeal from that denial. Of course I had no difficulty getting the Court of Appeal to dismiss the frivolous appeal, but it delayed the trial a month. Except for this type of abuse, in most other regards California’s anti-SLAPP law provides a very useful tool to get rid of lawsuits designed to silence free speech or frustrate the right of redress. The point is, if you are complaining about California’s SLAPP statute, and your complaint has nothing to do with an attorney using it for delay purposes, then you probably filed a SLAPP action and the system worked by getting rid of it.

However, in case you still have it out for California’s anti-SLAPP law, I bring you an example out of Illinois that should make you feel a little better. California pioneered the anti-SLAPP concept, and most states have used that law as a template, but that hasn’t prevented some from coming up with their own strange hybrids.

Enter the case of Steve Sandholm, a high school basketball coach/athletic director in Illinois. In the case of Sandholm v. Kuecker, some parents decided they didn’t like Sandholm’s coaching style, so they really went after him, hoping to get him replaced. They posted useful, positive comments such as “[he is] a psycho nut who talks in circles and is only coaching for his glory.” The efforts were to no avail, because the school board decided to keep him. However that decision only fanned the flames, and the parents kept up their campaign. Sandholm found some of the statements to be defamatory, so he brought a defamation action.

But wait. Illinois has an anti-SLAPP statute that states that speech and petition activities are “immune from liability, regardless of intent or purpose, except when not genuinely aimed at procuring favorable government action, result, or outcome.” Wow that’s a broad standard. A school district is a government entity, and the parents were trying to get that government entity to do something (removing the coach), so did that fall under Illinois’ anti-SLAPP statute? If I read the statute correctly, that means that even if the parents got together and decided to fabricate lies about the coach, they are immune from a defamation action so long as those lies were “genuinely aimed at procuring a favorable government . . . outcome.” (I’m not saying that happened, I’m only using the case to present a hypothetical.) And how in the world is a court going to determine if the actions were “genuine”?

Incredibly, that’s exactly how the Court of Appeal interpreted the statute. Read this excellent summary of the case by John Sharkey to see just how convoluted the anti-SLAPP process can become.

Peer Review Process for Doctors is a Protected Activity Under SLAPP Statute

Anti-SLAPP Motion against doctor
The California Court of Appeal recently ruled that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to SLAPP law, and that I have saved many doctors from filing actions that would have been met with successful anti-SLAPP motions and thereby cost them many thousands of dollars, paying the other side’s attorney fees.

OK, the Court didn’t actually mention me by name, but that’s the way I read it. You see, most doctors (depending on their practice) want and need medical privileges at one or more hospitals. Without those privileges, their practices are really crippled. So when a hospital decides to revoke those privileges, it is a big deal for the doctor.

Following the revocation, the doctors want to do something, anything, to pressure the hospital’s board to reinstate the privileges. That often brings them to my door, wanting to sue for defamation, claiming that someone said something that cost them their privileges, and that they suffered damages as a result.

I have always refused such cases, because I am of the opinion that under normal circumstances, the entire medical peer review process qualifies as an official proceeding. Therefore, it falls under both the anti-SLAPP statute and the absolute privileges of Civil Code section 47. No matter how you try to plead the action, it will come back to the fact that the decision to “fire” the doctor was a protected activity.

Leading us to the case of radiologist John Nesson versus Northern Inyo County Local Hospital District. For reasons not important to the story, Dr. Nesson lost his privileges at a hospital. Dr. Nesson sought reappointment by the hospital and, after it was denied, filed a civil complaint. He retained counsel who either did not recognize the SLAPP aspects of the case or decided to take a run at it anyway, thinking they could successfully plead around them. (Which does not mean they did anything wrong, as set forth below.)

In the complaint, they alleged causes of action for: (1) breach of contract; (2) breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing; (3) violation of Health and Safety Code section 1278.5; (4) violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act; and (5) violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). In summary, the grounds for Dr. Nesson’s claims were that the hospital had breached the Agreement by not giving him 30 days’ notice of termination, had retaliated against him for his complaints about patient safety, and had discriminated against him for a perceived mental disability or medical condition.

A very good try. Do you see that none of the causes of action mention defamation or any of the other causes of action that one normally associates with a SLAPP suit? Many defense attorneys would not have even spotted the SLAPP issues, and the matter would have proceeded. But here is today’s lesson. A SLAPP is a SLAPP is a SLAPP, and it doesn’t matter what you call the causes of action if the conduct arises from a protected activity.

I previously wrote about my successful anti-SLAPP motion against Freddie Fraudster, who fraudulently obtained a credit card under my client’s name. When my client reported the fraud to the bank, Freddie sued claiming that damaged his reputation with that institution. In response to my anti-SLAPP motion, he argued that my client’s communications to the bank were not protected because they were not part of any formal review process. Motion GRANTED, even though the report in question was not to any official agency.

So too, the attorneys defending against Dr. Nesson’s action did spot the SLAPP issues, and brought an anti-SLAPP motion. Dr. Nesson argued in response that his summary suspension and the subsequent termination of the Agreement did not constitute protected activity because the hospital was not involved in the peer review process or his summary suspension. Motion GRANTED, because it’s all part of the same protected activity.

The decision to suspend privileges triggers a statutory scheme for review of the decision under Business and Professions Code section 805, so the actions of the hospital and the medical examination committee were a normal part of that process. As I have repeatedly explained would happen, the trial court granted the hospital’s special motion to strike, finding that the contract termination was “inextricably intertwined with the . . . summary suspension, arose from, and was in furtherance of the protected activity.”

But what about the claim that he was terminated because of a perceived mental disability or medical condition? If he was discriminated against, how can that be protected by the anti-SLAPP statute? How can that “arise from” the protected activity? As the Court of Appeal explained:

“[T]he anti-SLAPP statute applies to claims made in connection with the protected activity, regardless of defendant’s motive, or the motive the plaintiff may be ascribing to the defendant’s conduct. (Navellier v. Sletten, supra, 29 Cal.4th at pp. 89-90.) The only alleged evidence or argument in support of his claim that the Hospital perceived Nesson as disabled are the facts that the Hospital received the written special notice of summary action and the notice of medical executive committee action suspension. Nesson contends “[b]ased on the above letters and a report from the MEC, the Hospital decided to terminate Nesson’s Service Agreement.” These letters and any alleged “report” are part of the peer review process.”

In defense of the attorneys, there were complicating factors here, and sometimes you have to push the envelope. That is how statutes are interpreted under the law. The discrimination claim might have survived if the evidence had taken the alleged discrimination outside the review process. Further complicating the matter, Dr. Nesson did not exhaust his administrative remedies, and that gave pause to the court since that made it impossible for him to show a likelihood of success on the action.

Is Rush Limbaugh Facing a Claim for Defamation?

Rush Limbaugh Liable for SlanderI’m getting calls from media outlets about some comments made by Rush Limbaugh, and whether they constitute defamation. I’m always happy to talk to you reporters and provide comments, but thought I’d put this post up to provide some background for your articles.

Apparently Rush Limbaugh weighed in on the controversy over religious organizations being forced to pay for birth control for their employees. Following an appearance by Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University student, at an informal House Democratic hearing last month. Ms. Fluke testified in favor of Mr. Obama’s mandate, which Georgetown and other Catholic institutions have roundly condemned as an infringement on their religious rights.

At the hearing, Ms. Fluke said fellow students at her Jesuit university pay as much as $1,000 a year for contraceptives that are not covered by student health plans.

On Wednesday, during his radio show, Limbaugh allegedly said:

“What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute . . . she wants to be paid to have sex … She’s having so much sex she can’t afford contraception.”

Accusing a woman of being unchaste is the classic, old-school form of slander. Here is the definition of slander under California’s Civil Code § 46:

Slander is a false and unprivileged publication, orally uttered, and also communications by radio or any mechanical or other means which:

1. Charges any person with crime, or with having been indicted, convicted, or punished for crime;

2. Imputes in him the present existence of an infectious, contagious, or loathsome disease;

3. Tends directly to injure him in respect to his office, profession, trade or business, either by imputing to him general disqualification in those respects which the office or other occupation peculiarly requires, or by imputing something with reference to his office, profession, trade, or business that has a natural tendency to lessen its profits;

4. Imputes to him impotence or a want of chastity; or

5. Which, by natural consequence, causes actual damage.

I’ll bet you never knew it was slander to accuse a man of being impotent, but I digress. There it is in black and white – it is slander to impute to a woman a “want of chastity”. (For those of you who carefully read the section and see that it said “imputes to HIM . . . a want of chastity”, you get bonus points. However, there is a catchall statute that provides statements of gender in statutes don’t exclude the other gender, so you can’t accuse men or women of being loose.)

So is Rush Limbaugh toast?

Not at all, because defamation law makes clear that context is everything. Back in 2009 I wrote about the case of radio commentator Tom Martino who stated on his consumer show that the sellers of a boat were “lying”. The plaintiffs/sellers took umbrage with that remark, and sued Martino for defamation. Defendants responded with an anti-SLAPP motion, claiming the statement was merely an opinion and therefore could not constitute defamation. The trial court agreed with defendants and ruled that as a matter of law the comments did not constitute defamation. Under the anti-SLAPP statute, plaintiffs were ordered to pay all of defendants’ attorney fees.

A true opinion cannot constitute defamation unless it is offered as an assertion of fact. While it was true that the radio program host accused the plaintiffs of “lying” to their customer, that could not seriously be taken as an assertion of fact given the context of the show. As the court observed, “The Tom Martino Show is a radio talk show program that contains many of the elements that would reduce the audiences’ expectation of leaning an objective fact: drama, hyperbolic language, an opinionated and arrogant host and heated controversy. In the context of the show, Martino was simply listening to the complaint of a caller, and possessed no independent knowledge of the facts beyond what he was being told. It could not be taken, in that context, that he intended his “lying” comment to be taken as a verifiable fact.

So it is with Rush Limbaugh. He knows nothing about this woman who believes others should pay for her birth control, and he was engaging in a little hyperbole about what that makes her. He was creating a false syllogism to make a point, claiming that based on her testimony she wants to have sex, she can’t have sex without birth control, she wants someone else to pay for her birth control, so she is being paid to have sex.

As the old saying goes, you can sue for anything, but a defamation action by Ms. Fluke would not survive the first motion.

Using Offensive anti-SLAPP Deemed Frivolous

International Anti-SLAPP motionAn international defamation action has ended up here in California. Out of the UK, Tyneside councillors (that’s the way they spell it over there) are very upset that an anonymous blogger who calls himself “Mr. Monkey” has been defaming them.

The council has backed a three-year hunt to discover the identity of Mr. Monkey, with the legal fees now exceeding six figures. So far, since they did not retain Morris & Stone, the attempts to uncover the identity of Mr. Monkey have been unsuccessful.

Enter Coun Ahmed Khan, a councillor from a rival political party. The four plaintiff councillors successfully moved to have Khan’s personal computer records disclosed, because they apparently suspected him of being Mr. Monkey. Khan denies that he is the primate in question, but has cried “enough is enough”, and wants to put an end to the search.

To that end, he brought what I can only characterize as an offensive anti-SLAPP motion (not offensive as in crude, but as in the opposite of defensive). He intervened in the San Mateo Superior Court action and filed an anti-SLAPP motion, asserting that even though he is not Mr. Monkey, the comments of Mr. Monkey are protected and the action should therefore be dismissed.

Motion DENIED. Indeed, the court found the motion to be so frivolous that it awarded attorney fees of £40,000 to the plaintiffs. (I once obtained a judgment in Los Angeles Superior Court in British pounds. It’s worth it just to see the court clerks try to figure out how to enter it into the system and calculate interest and the like.)

Khan has now appealed the denial of his anti-SLAPP motion and the award of attorney fees. The complete story can be found here.

[Correction]  The sources upon which I was relying may have jumped the gun as to the award of attorney fees. One of the parties to the action contacted me to state that the £40,000 figure is what is being sought, but that the motion for those fees has been stayed pending the appeal.

Lawyers Must Be Careful When Sending Demand Letters Out of State

Anti-SLAPP Motion Extortion

How Metabolic sees the case

The case of Metabolic Research, Inc. v. Scott J. Ferrell, et al. is turning out to be a fascinating case on several levels, including liability considerations for attorneys and SLAPP issues. Briefly, here are the facts as set forth in a recent opinion of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Scott J. Ferrell is an attorney practicing in Orange County, California. He apparently believes that a supplement being made by Metabolic and sold by GNC (Stemulite) is bad stuff. To that end, he sent demand letters to Metabolic and GNC in Pennsylvania and Nevada, accusing them of violating the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act by way of false advertising, and threatening to sue them (presumably in California)* if they did not stop their (allegedly) evil ways and agree to an injunction to that effect.

In California, Ferrell’s letter would likely have been determined to be part of the litigation process and therefore protected, UNLESS it was deemed to be extortion. (See Flately v. Mauro.) In California, the issue would have proved very interesting, because while Ferrell was not demanding any money, the hallmark of true extortion, the injunction he was demanding was so onerous – including a requirement that all profits be disgorged – that Metabolic claimed it would have put it out of business. Nonetheless, in California it might have been decided that the letters did not cross the line, and Ferrell would have been safe from suit.

But Ferrell’s letters were sent outside of California. In November 2009 Metabolic filed a lawsuit in Nevada State Court against Ferrell, charging extortion and racketeering based on his demand letter. Ferrell removed the case to Federal Court (I never would have done that for the reasons that follow), and then brought a motion to dismiss based upon Nevada’s anti-SLAPP statute, claiming that the lawsuit amounted to a SLAPP because it was suing him for engaging in litigation.

Motion DENIED. The District Court found that “Nevada’s anti-SLAPP legislation only protected communications made directly to a governmental agency and did not protect a demand letter sent to a potential defendant in litigation.” Again, as would be appropriate in California but not necessarily elsewhere, Ferrell took an immediate appeal.

Appeal DENIED. Federal courts do not like interlocutory appeals, and will find a way to reject them. The court did an in-depth review of Nevada’s anti-SLAPP statute, and concluded there was no right of immediate review of a denial of an anti-SLAPP motion. The court referred to this as a “run of the mill anti-SLAPP motion” (ouch), and held that a District Court judge affords sufficient safeguards to protect defendants from SLAPP actions without the added protection of an immediate appeal. However, to twist the knife a little, the Ninth Circuit threw in that Ferrell could have proceeded by way of a writ of mandamus, and that it was offering “no opinion on how we might have decided” such an application had it been pursued.

Lawyer Lesson 1: Consider that when you send a demand letter out of state, you may be subjecting yourself to an action in that jurisdiction.

Lawyer Lesson 2: (And I have seen this over and over) Don’t remove a case to Federal court just because you can. The motion may well have been decided the same way in State court, but I would not have wanted it decided there.

* That’s not me presuming, the court opinion used those words.

SLAPP Statute Still Finding Its Way in D.C.

The District of Columbia instituted an anti-SLAPP procedure back in March but the judges are having a heck of a time figuring it out. (Don’t feel bad D.C., California has had a SLAPP statute since 1992, and some judges still don’t get it.)

Judge Rufus G. King III of the D.C. Superior Court got it right. A local television station did a report on the ridiculous amounts of overtime that was being paid to certain government officials. In one reported case of a fire department Lieutenant, his annual salary was $90,000 but he had earned as much as $119,000 in overtime pay one year.

That Lieutenant took exception with the fact that the news story had used terms like “racked up” and “month after month”, claiming those statements were defamatory. His attorney apparently failed to explain or he refused to understand that only the “gist” of the statement need be true in order to defeat a defamation action, so he filed a defamation action against the television station, and the station quite properly brought an anti-SLAPP motion.

Judge King ruled that the report was a matter of public interest and therefore fell under the anti-SLAPP statute, and that the Lieutenant failed to demonstrate a likelihood that he could establish damages. Motion GRANTED, case DISMISSED. Good job D.C.

But then there was Judge Richard Leon. You may recall that a U.S. Department of Agriculture official named Shirley Sherrod left her job after a video was released, seemingly showing her confessing to discriminating against white farmers. It later came to light that the comments were arguably taken out of context due to the editing of the video. Sherrod didn’t appreciate that, and sued blogger Andres Breitbart, among others, asserting in her complaint that the “deceptively edited” clip constituted defamation. Breitbart responded by bringing an anti-SLAPP motion, asserting that the posting of the clip was an act of protected speech.

Sure sounds like a SLAPP to me, but Judge Leon denied the motion out-of-hand with only a two sentence order. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was stumped by that one as well, and today ordered Judge Leon to explain himself.

Less than a week ago, Judge Robert L. Wilkins out of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia was not nearly as concise as Judge Leon, and issued a 55-page opinion denying an anti-SLAPP motion, finding “that the special motion to dismiss procedure under the Anti-SLAPP Act does not apply to a federal court sitting in diversity.”

An Emotional Distress Claim Should Not Be Undertaken Lightly

The case of Mallard v. Progressive Choice Ins. Co. beautifully illustrates a point I discuss with all clients who want to make an emotional distress claim, while at the same time illustrating an important SLAPP rule of law.

Sometimes I will get a call from a potential client within minutes after they were fired. They want to sue for wrongful termination and they want to sue NOW!

But 15 minutes after an employee has been fired, what are the damages? When I ask the caller that question, they answer, “I was fired!” Yes, but what are your damages?   “I was fired!”

Rather than to go on all day in this fashion, I explain. Damages are something you can put a dollar sign in front of. Being fired is not a damage, although obviously it can CAUSE damages. But 15 minutes after a termination, an ethical attorney should explain that there are no real damages at that point.

If the employee was making, say, $25 an hour, and they were fired two hours before their shift ended, then the damages at that moment they are calling me are $50, at least in terms of lost wages. But let’s carry it out a little. Let’s assume for our hypothetical that the employee had seen the writing on the wall and had already sent out some feelers for a new job before the axe fell. She makes a few calls, and a week later she starts a new job with the same title that pays $30 per hour with better benefits. What are her damages then? Continue reading

Court of Appeal Applies SLAPP Law to Zimbabwe Case


The California Court of Appeal has interpreted the term “official proceeding” as used in Code of Civil Procedure section 426.16 (the anti-SLAPP statute) to include even foreign litigation. The fact pattern here is rather involved, but to summarize, the action began in Zimbabwe when a wife allegedly took marital property to various locations in that country and then fled with her children to Northern California. The husband was convinced that his sister-in-law had assisted with the removal of the property, so he obtained a “writ of arrest” against her and she spent the night in jail. After a contested hearing, the Zimbabwe court found that there was insufficient evidence to prove that the sister-in-law had assisted in the removal of the property.

The sister-in-law then filed a civil action against the husband in Los Angeles Superior Court for false arrest. A jury found in favor of the husband, but the Court of Appeal reversed and ordered a new trial for various reasons. Back in Zimbabwe, the husband filed for permission to appeal from the final judgment on the arrest case. That application was supported by several declarations, including one from the husband’s California attorney, Donald C. Randolph of Randolph & Associates. The Zimbabwe court denied the application, and the sister-in-law then sued Randolph for malicious prosecution back here in California.

Quite appropriately, Randolph brought an anti-SLAPP motion seeking to strike the malicious prosecution complaint. Clearly, the declaration provided by Randolph was related to litigation and was in furtherance of a right of redress, even if that right was being pursued in Zimbabwe. Unfortunately for Randolph, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mel Red Recana was unwilling to take Section 426.16 that far, and denied the anti-SLAPP motion, concluding that it did not apply to activity in a foreign country.

But the Court of Appeal looked at the controversy from a slightly different angle. Although the declaration was provided to a court in Zimbabwe, it “contained statements about the effect of the Zimbabwe order in the Los Angeles case and the facts supporting probable cause for the writ of arrest,” which “were made in connection with issues under consideration in the Los Angeles case.” On that basis, the justices concluded, the statements were made “to influence the determination of issues pending in the Los Angeles case,” and therefore were a part of the right of petition in the Los Angeles case.

The story was reported by the Metropolitan News-Enterprise and can be found here.

Aaron Morris

Morris & Stone, LLP
Orchard Technology Park
11 Orchard Road, Suite 106
Lake Forest, CA 92630
(714) 954-0700

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