In an amicus brief filed this afternoon, Public Citizen and Twitter have urged the California Court of Appeal for the First District to join with the Court of Appeal for the Sixth District in ruling that plaintiffs seeking to identify anonymous online critics whose statements they claim are defamatory or otherwise wrongful must produce evidence […]
Author Archives: Paul Levy
by Paul Alan Levy Judge Tena Campbell of the United States District Court has issued an interesting decision holding that a California woman sued in diversity by a Utah company may file a special motion to strike the plaintiff’s defamation claim. The case involves a suit by the “Diamond Ranch Academy” against Chelsea Filer, a […]
The Los Angeles Times carries an op-ed about a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the City of Inglewood, California, against a local resident who has taken portions of the city’s own recordings of public meetings to highlight conduct by the city’s elected mayor that he deemed inappropriate. The defendant has a web site that lambastes […]
by Paul Alan Levy In a ruling issued this morning in Davis v. Cox, the Washington Supreme Court unanimously struck down that state's anti-SLAPP statute because of a provision, not contained in most other state anti-SLAPP statutes, under which once a case is found to over a matter of free speech or petition within the law's […]
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has issued an important decision at the intersection of First Amendment and trademark law, marking the second time in two days that free speech has triumphed over expansive intellectual property claims. On Monday it was the Ninth Circuit’s en banc decision in Garcia v. Google, rejecting an […]
In an opinion issued this morning, an almost unanimous en banc Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has overturned the panel opinion in Garcia v. Google, which last year granted a mandatory injunction requiring Google to remove the video “Innocence of Muslims” from YouTube on the ground that, when an actress was tricked into […]
This morning we have a broad hint that the Ninth Circuit's en banc opinion in Garcia v. Google is to be expected today, and that the ruling will reverse Judge Kozinski's opinion for the panel. What the ground of that opinion will be, who will write, and what the split among the judges will […]
Rebecca Tushnet’s blog calls attention to a bizarre cybersquatting complaint that was recently filed in the Northern District of California by ThermoLife, an Arizona company that touts its dietary supplements as providing “the purest, most powerful and innovative products” using the trademark “Muscle Beach.” The trademark claims are utter nonsense, but the proceeding raises a […]
In a brief filed in the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, we have asked the Court to enforce the Supreme Court’s rule forbidding temporary injunctions to protect the reputation of a business against allegedly defamatory criticisms. The facts of the case show the wisdom of the rule. How the Appeal Came About In the fall […]
by Paul Alan Levy Over the past couple of decades, federal courts have a uniform answer to the question whether state anti-SLAPP statutes applied when state law claims were pursued in federal court. Anti-SLAPP statutes give the defendants in cases brought over the exercise of free speech rights on matters of public interest, and certain […]