Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation - Notable SLAPPs - United States

United States

• Prominent foreclosure defense attorney Matthew Weidner was sued by Nationwide Title, a foreclosure processing firm. Nationwide Title also obtained a gag order against another foreclosure defense lawyer from posting videos of their employees admitting they lied under oath when processing foreclosure documents. The gag order—a prior restraint—was issued without the other party present and is under appeal by the American Civil Liberties Union.
• Barbra Streisand, as plaintiff, lost a SLAPP motion after she sued an aerial photographer involved in the California Coastal Records Project. Streisand v. Adelman et al., in California Superior Court; Case SC077257 See Streisand effect.
• Nationally syndicated talk radio host Tom Martino prevailed in an anti-SLAPP motion after he was sued for libel by a watercraft retailer. The case received national attention for its suggestion that no one reasonably expects objective facts from a typical talk show host.
• Kim Shewalter and other neighborhood activists, as defendants, won an anti-SLAPP motion against apartment building owners. The owners had filed a SLAPP suit because of the defendants' protest activities.
• Barry King and another Internet poster, as defendants, won an anti-SLAPP motion against corporate plaintiffs based on critical posts on an Internet financial message board.
• Kathi Mills won an anti-SLAPP motion against the Atlanta Humane Society, Atlanta Humane Society v. Mills, in Gwinnett County (Georgia) Superior Court; case 01-A-13269-1 She had been sued based on comments she made to an internet forum after a news program had aired critical of the AHS. In part, the judge ruled that private citizens do not need to investigate news coverage before they make their own comments on it. Also that governmental entities may not sue for defamation.
• Karen Winner, the author of "Divorced From Justice, is recognized as " catalyst for the changes that we adopted," said Leo Milonas, a retired justice with the Appellate Division of the New York state courts who chaired a special commission that recommended the changes adopted by Chief Judge Judith Kaye." But in 1999, Winner, along with a psychologist/whistleblower, and several citizens were SLAPPed for criticizing the guardian ad litem system and a former judge in South Carolina. Winner's report, "Findings on Judicial Practices & Court-appointed Personnel In The Family Courts In Dorchester, Charleston & Berkeley Counties, South Carolina" and citizen demonstrations led to the very first laws in South Carolina to establish minimum standards and licensing requirements for guardians ad litem — who represent the interests of children in court cases. The retaliatory SLAPPs have been dragging on for nearly 10 years, with judgments totaling more than $11 million against the co-defendants collectively. Reflecting the retaliatory nature of these suits, at least one of the co-defendants is still waiting to find out from the judges which particular statements if any he made were actually false.
• From 1981 to 1986, Pacific Legal Foundation and San Luis Obispo County, California, filed a suit attempting to obtain the mailing list of the Abalone Alliance to get the group to pay for the police costs of the largest anti-nuclear civil-disobedience act in U.S. history at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. Pacific Legal Foundation lost at every court level and withdrew the suit the day before it was due to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
• In March 2009, MagicJack (a company who promotes a USB VOIP device) filed a defamation suit against Boing Boing for exposing their unfair and deceptive business tactics regarding their EULA, visitor counter, and 30 day trial period. This was dismissed as a SLAPP by a California judge in late 2009. In the resulting ruling, MagicJack was made responsible for most of Boing Boing's legal cost.
• In the case Comins vs. VanVoorhis a Florida man named Christopher Comins filed a defamation suit against a University of Florida grad student after the student blogged about a video of Comins repeatedly shooting someone's pet dogs. This was cited as an example of a SLAPP suit by the radio show On the Media.
• In January 2011 Sony Computer Entertainment America sued George Hotz and other individuals for jailbreaking the PlayStation 3 and publishing encryption and signing keys for various layers of the system's architecture. The defendants and the Electronic Frontier Foundation consider the case an egregious abuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Hotz settled with Sony before trial.

In effort to prevent four women from filing any Public Records Requests without first getting permission from a judge, or from filing future lawsuits, the Congress Elementary School District filed a SLAPP suit on January 28, 2010. The Goldwater Institute, a think tank based in Phoenix, AZ, represented the four defendants. The school district said that it has been harassed so often by Warren that it was not able to functionally educate its students. Toni Wayas, the school district’s superintendent, claimed "that it had, time and time again, complied with the requests" The Goldwater Institute argued that the school district had been in violation of state laws mandating government transparency in the past. Investigations in 2002 and 2007 by the state Ombudsman and Attorney General uncovered violations of the state’s open meeting law by the Attorney General’s Office. According to Carrie Ann Sitren of the Goldwater Institute, this was “a clear attempt to silence people in the community who have been critical of the board’s actions, and have made good-faith attempts to ensure the district is spending taxpayer money wisely.” None of the records requested were private or confidential, and thus, should have been readily available to be released to the public, according to the assistant state Ombudsman.

"Scientology versus the Internet" refers to a number of disputes relating to the Church of Scientology's efforts to suppress material critical of Scientology on the Internet through the use of lawsuits and legal threats.