May 24, 2017:- If someone tells a Boston Globe reporter something about you that you consider defamatory, and the Globe publishes it, you could sue for defamation. But what if that certain someone expresses the same message through the same medium as a way to reach to those Globe readers who happen to be state government officials? Should a judge throw the case out right away because of the speaker’s intended audience?
Because of the broad language of the Massachusetts law barring “strategic lawsuits against public participation” (the anti-SLAPP statute) this is a question that comes before the courts from time to time. The statute bars claims and counterclaims “based on” a party’s constitutional right of petition. This casts too wide a net, one that catches (and thereby prohibits) claims that people bring in good faith, not out of any desire to chill the other side’s petitioning rights.
Fortunately, yesterday the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) narrowed the statute’s reach via the case of Blanchard v. Steward Carney Hospital. For my post on the Appeals Court’s decision on the same case last year click here.
In a nutshell: The action will survive if the person suing can show that they did not sue primarily to chill the other side’s legitimate exercise of their right to petition.
This is the right decision, but what a shame that the Legislature left it to the judicial branch to remedy its own poor drafting.
Peter Vickery, Esq., 