California SLAPP Law

Litigation is never a 100% certainty, as evidenced by the two cases that follow. But an attorney who really knows his or her stuff can certainly mean the difference between victory or defeat. If you are going to enter the murky waters of an anti-SLAPP motion or are contemplating a defamation case that could invoke an anti-SLAPP motion, be sure you have a good anti-SLAPP attorney.

Today we discuss two seemingly identical cases, at least from the legal issues they presented, but which ended in completely opposite results.

The Vagaries of Anti-SLAPP Law

In our first example, The New York Daily News (that bastion of journalism) reported on a sex scandal at the fire department, and the article included two photographs. The first photo was a generic stock photo showing firefighters at the scene of a fire. But the second photo is the one that started the brouhaha. Inexplicably the newspaper chose to use a photo of firefighter Francis Cheney II, taken during a formal 9/11 ceremony. The newspaper’s intent (so they claimed) was simply to use Cheney as a representation of a firefighter. But here was an article about a sex scandal, with a picture of Cheney. How could any reasonable person take that as anything other than an implied reference that Cheney was one of the firefighters involved?

Cheney certainly thought his photo would be taken that way, so he sued the newspaper, claiming that the photo had harmed his reputation by implying that he was one of the firefighters involved in the sex scandal. But a judge in federal court dismissed the action, finding that since the article never mentioned Cheney by name, it was too much of a stretch to assume that readers would think the photo was there because he was a participant.

So, the rule of law appears to be that if your photo is included in a sex scandal story, don’t bother suing, because the court will throw out your case if the other side brings an anti-SLAPP motion, because you won’t be able to prove a likelihood of success on your case. Good to know.

Now we turn to the case of Leah Manzari v. Associated News Ltd. Read the rest of this entry »