Hello, world! As the latest victim to roam the halls of The Legal Satyrcon headquarters, it’s my pleasure to kick things off with a little story of SLAPP suits gone wrong in the Pacific Northwest.
Crystal Cox is a woman on a mission.
She obviously does not like Oregon attorney Kevin Padrick or his company Obsidian Finance Group and she has harnessed the power of the internet to make her feelings about him public.
Blogging at a website with the creative url http://www.obsidianfinancesucks.com/ Ms. Cox aired a number of grievances about Padrick and his financial services company. Padrick responded by doing what many crybabies do when people say mean things about them on the internet: he sued her for defamation.
Although Ms. Cox seems to be guilty of many crimes against good graphic design and standard capitalization, her blog posts on the subject of Obsidian Financial should fall under the shimmery force field of First Amendment protection because if you can’t bitch about people you don’t like on the web, then the terrorists have won. The U.S. District Court in Oregon seems to agree, because it recently granted the defendant Ms. Cox summary judgment for the vast majority of the blog posts she published.
Back in July, the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment because Ms. Cox’s blog posts were protected by the First Amendment. Because her online diatribes amount to her opinion, the blog posts are not actionable. The court applied the Ninth Circuit Three Factor test for determining whether a reasonable factfinder could see the blog posts as reasonable assertions of fact:
Applying these factors to Ms. Cox’s writing, the court concluded that one would generally not go to a website called “obsidianfinancesucks” for an evenhanded reporting of objective facts.
The court rightly recognized that they were dealing with a gripe site; one that was full of delightfully one-sided rants and dedicated to the hyperbolic venting of Ms. Cox’s personal feuds. In short, her blog posts her opinion.
The opinion makes clear that blogs are especially prone to opinionated content and not a great source for cold, hard facts. Bloggers who wish to follow her example should make sure they stay away from posting provable (or disprovable) assertions, but should feel confident in the knowledge that when the bile gets too high they can spew it as long as they stick to their own opinions.
The Oregon District Court did see room for possible liability with just one of the many, many blog posts at the heart of this lawsuit.
An article she wrote for another site was full of language that could imply assertions of fact, including specific allegations that the plaintiffs failed to pay their taxes.
Ms. Cox is apparently representing herself, so you can’t blame her for not taking advantage of every protection the law affords. Oregon, like Nevada, has an anti-SLAPP statute designed to protect people from harassing lawsuits whose only real purpose is to chill speech with legal threats and the grim specter of defamation litigation. OR. REV. STAT. §§ 31.150 et seq. (2001) gives defendants in speech-related civil actions a special motion to strike that they can use to have the Court dismiss the suit at an early stage unless the plaintiff can show that there is a probability that they will actually prevail on the claim.
Generally, the anti-SLAPP provision is available for any lawsuit arising from speech regarding government proceedings or in a public forum in connection with an issue of public interest. There is also a catch all for speech for conduct in furtherance of the exercise of the constitutional right of petition or the constitutional right of free speech in connection with a public issue or an issue of public interest."
Source
http://web.archive.org/web/20111231031041/http://randazza.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/oregon-no-country-for-old-slappers-draft/
Crystal Cox is a woman on a mission.
She obviously does not like Oregon attorney Kevin Padrick or his company Obsidian Finance Group and she has harnessed the power of the internet to make her feelings about him public.
Blogging at a website with the creative url http://www.obsidianfinancesucks.com/ Ms. Cox aired a number of grievances about Padrick and his financial services company. Padrick responded by doing what many crybabies do when people say mean things about them on the internet: he sued her for defamation.
Although Ms. Cox seems to be guilty of many crimes against good graphic design and standard capitalization, her blog posts on the subject of Obsidian Financial should fall under the shimmery force field of First Amendment protection because if you can’t bitch about people you don’t like on the web, then the terrorists have won. The U.S. District Court in Oregon seems to agree, because it recently granted the defendant Ms. Cox summary judgment for the vast majority of the blog posts she published.
Back in July, the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment because Ms. Cox’s blog posts were protected by the First Amendment. Because her online diatribes amount to her opinion, the blog posts are not actionable. The court applied the Ninth Circuit Three Factor test for determining whether a reasonable factfinder could see the blog posts as reasonable assertions of fact:
(1) whether in the broad context, the general tenor of the entire work, including the subject of the statements, the setting, and the format, negates the impression that the defendant was asserting an objective fact;
(2) whether the context and content of the specific statements, including the use of figurative and hyperbolic language, and the reasonable expectations of the audience, negate that impression; and
(3) whether the statement is sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proved true or false. Gardner, 563 F.3d at 987.
Applying these factors to Ms. Cox’s writing, the court concluded that one would generally not go to a website called “obsidianfinancesucks” for an evenhanded reporting of objective facts.
The court rightly recognized that they were dealing with a gripe site; one that was full of delightfully one-sided rants and dedicated to the hyperbolic venting of Ms. Cox’s personal feuds. In short, her blog posts her opinion.
The opinion makes clear that blogs are especially prone to opinionated content and not a great source for cold, hard facts. Bloggers who wish to follow her example should make sure they stay away from posting provable (or disprovable) assertions, but should feel confident in the knowledge that when the bile gets too high they can spew it as long as they stick to their own opinions.
The Oregon District Court did see room for possible liability with just one of the many, many blog posts at the heart of this lawsuit.
An article she wrote for another site was full of language that could imply assertions of fact, including specific allegations that the plaintiffs failed to pay their taxes.
Ms. Cox is apparently representing herself, so you can’t blame her for not taking advantage of every protection the law affords. Oregon, like Nevada, has an anti-SLAPP statute designed to protect people from harassing lawsuits whose only real purpose is to chill speech with legal threats and the grim specter of defamation litigation. OR. REV. STAT. §§ 31.150 et seq. (2001) gives defendants in speech-related civil actions a special motion to strike that they can use to have the Court dismiss the suit at an early stage unless the plaintiff can show that there is a probability that they will actually prevail on the claim.
Generally, the anti-SLAPP provision is available for any lawsuit arising from speech regarding government proceedings or in a public forum in connection with an issue of public interest. There is also a catch all for speech for conduct in furtherance of the exercise of the constitutional right of petition or the constitutional right of free speech in connection with a public issue or an issue of public interest."
Source
http://web.archive.org/web/20111231031041/http://randazza.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/oregon-no-country-for-old-slappers-draft/
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