by Paul Alan Levy When I saw the Popehat Signal a few years ago, seeking counsel to help Todd DeShong fend off a lawsuit in federal court in Texas claiming that he defamed Clark Baker on his "HIV Innocence Group Truth blog, which criticizes Baker for profiting through charlatanism (Baker claims that HIV status is unrelated […]
Author Archives: Paul Levy
What is it about presidential campaigns that brings out some of the worst examples of trademark bullying? Two years ago, we shot down bogus a trademark demand by the Ready for Hillary pre-campaign PAC, which tried to suppress Liberty Maniac's “Ready for Oligarchy” parody. (Readers of this blog may remember Liberty Maniacs (and its owner, […]
by Paul Alan Levy Ted Frank’s comment on my post yesterday about the y-y-yuge sanction imposed on Donald Trump for bringing a frivolous defamation claim hit the nail on the head – this was an April Fools Day prank. But as Eric Turkewitz, who created the concept and posted the first blog on the subject, explains […]
by Paul Alan Levy Could a $500,000,000 sanction for frivolous litigation be large enough that even Donald Trump would start taking the First Amendment seriously, and stop trying to use the courts to suppress lawful speech that he doesn’t like? In the final analysis, that is the issue raised by Erik Turkewitz’ blog post today. […]
by Paul Alan Levy Techdirt carries word of an ingenious scheme that two California lawyers have been running to get unflattering reviews removed from Google’s search results without ever proving defamation in an adversary proceeding and, indeed, without risk of an adversary proceeding. Opinion Corp., which hosts the consumer review site PissedConsumer.com, noticed a suspicious […]
Resolving an ambiguity in the District of Columbia's Anti-SLAPP law, the DC Court of Appeals held today in Doe No. 1 v. Burke that a defendant who succeeds in a special motion to quash a subpoena for the defendant's identifying information is presumptively entitled to have attorney fees awarded, absent special circumstances rendering such an […]
An article by Paul Farhi in this morning’s Washington Post discusses a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump against the Timothy O'Brien, a financial author who wrote a book about Trump's business career. Among other things, the book questioned whether Trump is quite as wealthy as he claims; the author’s opinion was that Trump had exaggerated […]
by Paul Alan Levy A comment to my recent blog post about Prestigious Pets, a Dallas pet care company that recently sued two of its customers for negative reviews, suggested an interesting approach for dealing with businesses that use non-disparagement clauses to block customers from posting accurate but unflattering reviews. Although consumer advocates place hope […]
by Paul Alan Levy Until recently, a Dallas, Texas pet-sitting service called Prestigious Pets enjoyed a fairly high rating on Yelp – most of the reviews gave it five stars. There were, however, two one-star dissents, one from Michelle D and one from Tatiana N, each of whom objected, in fairly mild terms, to some […]
by Paul Alan Levy In an opinion that bristles with significant issues, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver asserting that a Hollywood studio could not release a film based, in part, on a fictional portrayal of important public events in which he […]