Using Offensive anti-SLAPP Deemed Frivolous
An 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.
“Fox & Friends” Hosts Not Liable for Repeating Parody
- Fox & Friends
The Internet is an amazing source for both information and misinformation. One of the most telling examples was the case of Sarah Palin. A fictional question and answer session was written and published, with Palin purportedly making the comment that dinosaurs had roamed the earth just 5000 years ago. Many failed to realize (or chose not to recognize) the story was satire, and reported the dinosaur story as true. (Leading to an almost tearful Matt Damon proclaiming during an interview that she was not fit to serve because of her dinosaur beliefs.)
So-called traditional news sources cannot ignore what is posted on the Internet because it often is a breaking source for news; the commercial airline landing in the Hudson river being a recent example. But when parody is mistaken for truth, defamation can occur.
The cable show “Fox & Friends” reported a parody about a school principal as true. The real story was that a middle school student had left some ham on a table frequented by Muslim students. He was disciplined for his insensitivity. The parody took the story to an extreme, claiming that the school principal had instituted an “anti-ham response plan,” designed to teach the children that “ham is not a toy.” The hosts of Fox & Friends reported the parody as truth, and derided the principal for his overreaction. The principal sued for defamation in Levesque v. Doocy.
Fox & Friends was saved by New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 Supreme Court decision that created the “actual malice” standard for defamation against a public figure (also referred to as “New York Times actual malice”). But for the fact that the plaintiff was deemed to be a public figure, Fox would have been liable.
Go here for the detailed story, and here for the actual court decision.
