Plaintiff alleges Defendant engaged in "a coordinated online campaign making false statements," such as "accusing Plaintiff of design/invention theft, racism, ... and encouraging the public to report Plaintiff's online shopping platforms on sites like Etsy, Shopify, and TikTok as fraudulent and/or ... [as] selling counterfeit goods.'"
"Malicious prosecution," which covers the bringing of civil and administrative quasi-judicial complaints and not just criminal complaints, becomes especially relevant given a recent Colorado Supreme Court decision limiting defamation claims.
Whatever the merits of this particular defamation claim, the president has a long history of abusing the legal system to punish constitutionally protected speech.
Anti-SLAPP motions generally can't be used to resolve he said/she said factual disputes in such matters.
Plaintiff claimed that the search results violated his "right of publicity," and also that the output was defamatory because it "uses a 'negative algorithm' that promotes negative stories about Garmon while suppressing positive stories about him—or, at least, pushing the positive stories down the list of search results."
"[B]oth parties exchanged these Snapchat videos while they were intoxicated and their judgment was impaired. Notwithstanding, the communications were private and intended to be jokes between close friends."
"[Defendant ex-employer's] request for all of [plaintiff's] communications containing language that is sexist or racist is overbroad."
The court does, however, leave open the possibility that the plaintiff can file an amended complaint that can go forward.
The court appears unmoved by the claim that an earlier ruling sent the "wrong message ... that people of color (all the plaintiffs are Latino) do not have a chance to get their day in this Honorable Court."
"No one likes being called names. But not every alleged insult gives rise to a lawsuit in federal court. Especially where Ms. Mai has alleged that she is so important as to be a public figure, yet failed to allege Ms. Elsaden made her allegedly defamatory statement with actual malice."
"[I]t is irrelevant that Defendant Def Con did not know at the time the Transparency Reports were published whether Hadnagy had or had not engaged in sexual misconduct. Rather, if the sexual misconduct implications were in fact true at the time the Transparency Reports were published, Def Con is shielded by the truth defense."
"After receiving their surrogate baby, the couple purportedly performed an at-home DNA test 'which showed that [the would-be father] was in no way related to the baby.'"
largely because the compensatory damages were just $1.
A federal magistrate judge flags the issue, though doesn't purport to resolve it.
Free speech experts say the takedown order is a clear example of unconstitutional prior restraint under the First Amendment.
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