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Forbes
14 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
New Jersey Anti-SLAPP Law Applies In Part In Federal Court In Paucek
The U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals are split on the application of Anti-SLAPP laws in the federal ... More courts. Chip Paucek had been the CEO of a company (U2, Inc.) which had failed under some negative circumstances. Paucek is now the CEO of a new company (Pro-Athlete Community, Inc. a/k/a "PAC") which provides educational and other support to professional athletes who have ceased playing. Paucek came to the attention of Dahn Shaulis, who is a blogger covering the education industry through his publication Higher Education Inquirer ("HEI"). After following Paucek's failure with U2, Shaulis then began to investigate and cover Paucek's new venture, PAC. Long story short, Shaulis made some unflattering comments about Paucek on social media. Paucek had his attorney send Shaulis a cease-and-desist letter which also called for Shaulis to retract the offending comments. Shaulis agreed to do so, but only on terms that were unacceptable to Paucek. The day after receiving Paucek's cease-and-desist letter, Shaulis then posted on social media that he had received the letter but that he stood by the statements therein based on a variety of information. Paucek then sued Shaulis in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. Paucek alleged that Shaulis' social media posts were defamatory and that Shaulis had intentionally interfered with Paucek's prospective business relations. Shaulis responded by filing a motion to first determine if the New Jersey Uniform Public Expression Protection Act ("UPEPA") applied in federal court and which of several states' Anti-SLAPP laws should be applied to this controversy. The idea here was that the court would decide these threshold issues before Shaulis filed his UPEPA motion to dismiss (which had not yet been filed as of the time of this opinion). Shaulis also answered Paucek's complaint with a counterclaim under the UPEPA. All of this led to the opinion in Paucek v. Shaulis, 2025 WL 1298457 (D.N.J., May 6, 2025), that you can and should read for yourself here, and which we will next review. The first question addressed by the court was whether the New Jersey UPEPA would be recognized in federal court. The issue here is that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) already provide a means for the early dismissal of a case, which is by way of a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. If a defendant attaches evidence to a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, then that motion is converted to a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56. As I have often written, a special motion to dismiss or strike under the UPEPA is essentially an early summary judgment motion and akin to a "motion to dismiss on steroids". In fact, the UPEPA deliberately uses the summary judgment standard to test whether the plaintiff's complaint should be dismissed because that standard is well-understood by the courts and has already withstood constitutional challenges based on the plaintiff's right to a jury trial. So, the question becomes: if the Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss is already employed by the federal courts, then why substitute it with the UPEPA? The answer is twofold. First, in diversity of citizenship cases (as here), the federal courts will apply their own procedural rules but they are also required to apply the substantive rules of the state from where the action arises. This is known as the Erie doctrine, after a 1938 U.S. Supreme Court opinion of that name. But there is an important limitation, being that if the state substantive law "is in direct collision" with the federal procedure on some issue, then the federal procedure will govern that issue. Second, there are some differences between a Rule 12(b)(6) motion and a UPEPA special motion, mostly being the UPEPA special motion triggers a stay of discovery and the UPEPA automatically awards attorney fees to a defendant who successfully asserts a UPEPA special motion. A Rule 12(b)(6) motion does neither of these things. This is not the first time that a federal court has addressed whether the state law UPEPA should apply in the federal courts. In fact, throughout the nation, the state law UPEPA has been asserted in many federal court cases. The problem is that the federal courts have not all agree on the outcome, but rather there has been a split of opinion by the various federal circuits. The Fifth, Tenth, Eleventh and D.C. Circuit Courts of Appeals have held that Anti-SLAPP laws do not apply in federal court, while the 1st and 9th Circuits have held that they do. For its part, the Second Circuit has opinions going both ways, but with the latest opinions stating that Anti-SLAPP law do not apply in federal court. Obviously, the U.S. Supreme Court is eventually going to have to step in and resolve this split of decisions among the Circuits, but we're not there yet. The District of New Jersey, where this case was heard, sits in the 3rd Circuit which hasn't ruled yet on the issue. The court here declined to look at the issue as merely being one of whether an Anti-SLAPP law should apply in federal court or not. Rather, the court thought that the correct analysis was whether a particular Anti-SLAPP law (here, New Jersey's UPEPA) through its text and structure was in conflict with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This would be the analysis to be followed by the court. To this end, it was obvious to the court that some provisions of the UPEPA do indeed conflict with the FRPC. One example is that of the UPEPA mandating that a defendant who successfully brings a UPEPA special motion will be awarded attorney's fees. By contrast, the FRPC instead requires that before such attorney fees can be awarded, a successful party would have to prevail on either summary judgment or at trial. This means the defendant must prove that the plaintiff has no case, which is different than the UPEPA which requires the plaintiff to establish that he can make at least a prima facie case to avoid dismissal. Other conflicts of the UPEPA with the FRPC include an immediate appeal of right to the defendant if the UPEPA special motion is unsuccessful, and also the automatic stay of discovery upon the filing of a UPEPA special motion. So, there were conflicts between the UPEPA and the FRPC where their provisions collided. But that did not mean to the court that the entire UPEPA would be disallowed in federal court, but rather only that the conflicting provisions of the UPEPA would be surgically excised and in those places the federal rules would be substituted in their stead. This is known as "severability" and it is essentially the same process as where the illegal provisions of a contract are cut out but the surviving operating provisions will be enforced. This is the approach that has been followed by the Second and Ninth Circuits, which allows a court to enforce the state Anti-SLAPP procedures where they do not conflict with the federal rules, but replace those procedures with the corresponding federal rule where they do conflict. Now the court returned to the Erie doctrine which, it will be recalled, requires a federal court sitting in diversity jurisdiction to apply state substantive law but federal procedural law. Thus, it would only be the procedural parts of a state's Anti-SLAPP laws, including the UPEPA, that would be replaced by the federal rules. The substantive parts of the state's Anti-SLAPP laws would survive and be utilized under the Erie doctrine. This brought the court to one of the questions before it: Was the UPEPA's mandatory award of fees to a defendant who successfully asserted a UPEPA special motion to be considered substantive or procedural in nature? Under the Erie doctrine, a fee-shifting provision is typically considered to be substantive in nature because it is tied to the outcome of the litigation (a procedural rule is not). But there are times when a fee-shifting provision would be procedural, such as when such fees are awarded because of a party's bad faith conduct ― but that is not tied to the outcome of the litigation. Because the UPEPA's mandatory fee award is tied to the outcome, since it can only be awarded if the defendant prevails on the UPEPA special motion, the court held that the UPEPA fee-shifting provision is substantive and not procedural. But the UPEPA in fact has two fee-shifting provisions. As mentioned, the first provision awards attorney fees to a defendant who wins on the UPEPA special motion. This is different than the second provision, by which a court has the discretion to award attorney fees to the plaintiff and against the defendant if the defendant filed the UPEPA special motion in bad faith or for purposes of delay. This latter provision is not tied to the outcome of the case, since the case continues if the defendant loses the UPEPA special motion, and thus is procedural in nature. The upshot to this is that if the defendant wins the UPEPA special motion, then the mandatory fee award in favor of the defendant is substantive and determined by state law. However, if the defendant loses the special motion then the issue of whether fees can be awarded against the defendant would be procedural in nature and determined if at all by the FRCP. The court also noted another factor in determining the UPEPA's mandatory fee award to be substantive: One of the purposes of that mandatory fee award is to deter the filing of abusive litigation. Disposing of a minor issue, the court also held that UPEPA relief is only obtainable through the filing of a UPEPA special motion and not by way of a counterclaim. The balance of the opinion deals with a conflict of law issue; namely, which state's Anti-SLAPP law would apply. The court ultimately concludes that the New Jersey UPEPA applies, and although the court's discussion of the issue is quite interesting, it is beyond the scope of this article. ANALYSIS Anti-SLAPP laws such as the UPEPA are indeed a mix of substantive and procedural law ― they are not purely one or the other. It therefore makes sense for the federal courts in applying the Erie doctrine to apply the substantive portions but reject the procedural ones. This may be the best that we get until the U.S. Supreme Court resolves the split between circuits (and that could go either way) or Congress adopts a federal Anti-SLAPP law (which is regularly introduced, but never seems to go anywhere). But in the words of the Rolling Stones: "You can't always get what you want. You get what you need."
Forbes
5 days ago
- Politics
- Forbes
Texas Supreme Court Holds That Motions Are Not Within The Scope Of The TCPA In Ferchichi
The Supreme Court of Texas. Texas has a modern but non-uniform Anti-SLAPP law known as the Texas Citizens Participation Act ("TCPA") which operates to protect free speech and related rights from the perils of abusive litigation brought to silence or retaliate against the speaker. In fact, the TCPA was one of two Anti-SLAPP laws (the other was California's) that were primarily relied upon in the drafting of the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act ("UPEPA") which has proven to be popular among state legislatures. There have been, however, criticisms of the TCPA arising not so much from the text of the statute itself but rather from misapplications of the TCPA by the lower Texas courts. Today, we see the Texas Supreme Court step in to correct the Texas Court of Appeals on one such issue. The culprit in this case is the phrase "legal action". The TCPA provides for the early dismissal of a legal action if that litigation is based upon the speaker's lawful exercise of their free speech and related rights. The phrase "legal action" is ordinarily understood to basically mean a cause of action, which is basically a vessel found within a petition or complaint that states sufficient facts as would entitle a party to relief. It is very common that several actions be pled within a single petition or complaint based on essentially the same facts, such as with an auto accident case against a teenage driver where one action for negligence might be pled against the driver and a second against his parents for negligent entrustment of the vehicle. There should not be much, if any, confusion as to what a "legal action" means, although the UPEPA decided to use the phrase "cause of action" instead just to eliminate even the possibility of any such misinterpretation. The TCPA defines a legal action as a "lawsuit, cause of action, petition, complaint, cross-claim, or counterclaim", but then goes on to include "any other judicial pleading or filing that requests legal, declaratory, or equitable relief." The purpose of that last phrase is to keep a litigant from filing something that states a legal action but attempting to call it something else, such as a Writ Of Mumbo Jumbo or something unusual. Nonetheless, it is that last phrase which stored up trouble, since a "filing" could be taken to mean a motion that requested some relief (although that is basically what every motion does). Some of the Texas Court of Appeals held in a number of cases that "legal action" could include certain motions, such as discovery motions or motions for sanctions where the party bringing the motion sought monetary relief. The rationale of these courts was along the lines that since one party was trying to get money out of the other, that constituted a "legal action" which brought into play the TCPA. The upshot was that a party faced with a discovery motion seeking monetary relief or a motion for sanctions could challenge the motion itself by bringing a TCPA special motion. The other of the Texas Court of Appeals basically just said, "No, a motion is not a legal action whether it awards monetary relief or not." Eventually, this split of opinions within the Texas Court of Appeals made its way up to the Texas Supreme Court which issued an opinion in Ferchichi v. Whataburger Restaurants LLC, 2025 WL 1350005 (Tex., May 9, 2025), which you can read for yourself here and which we will now examine. After reviewing the split of cases within the Texas Court of Appeals, the Texas Supreme Court then went on to examine the text of the TCPA on this point. Again, the TCPA defines a legal action as a "lawsuit, cause of action, petition, complaint, cross-claim, or counterclaim", but then goes on to include "any other judicial pleading or filing that requests legal, declaratory, or equitable relief." While noting that this last phrase is meant to be broadly interpreted, the Texas Supreme Court also noted that it is meant to be interpreted according to a doctrine of statutory construction known as ejusdim generis. This doctrine basically states that where the legislature has given examples of various things in a statute, and then tacked on something akin to "and like things" at the end, those "like things" must be in the same family as those things which have been listed. Applied here, it meant that the "other judicial pleading or filing" needed to be like a lawsuit, cause of action, petition, etc. To the contrary, the Texas Supreme Court noted: "The motions to compel and for sanctions at issue here, by contrast, are not remotely 'like' a 'lawsuit, cause of action, petition, complaint, cross-claim, or counterclaim.' Rather, they are based on conduct ancillary to the substantive claims in the case' and cannot stand on their own. [] It also did not matter to the Texas Supreme Court that a particular motion sought monetary relief, as that would not drag it under the coverage of the TCPA because those are procedural remedies not directly arising from the cause of action giving rise to the case: "As such, there is no reason to treat a motion to compel that does not seek monetary relief any differently from one that does, at least for purposes of determining whether it constitutes a legal action under the TCPA." Thus, the Texas Supreme Court held that motions did not fall within the ambit of the TCPA and a party cannot properly bring a TCPA special motion to try to get rid of the motion. Instead, a motion will be granted or denied without any regard to the TCPA. ANALYSIS There is not much to say about the Texas Supreme Court's ruling because it is right on target. The only criticism would be towards the particular Texas Court of Appeals which upheld the application of the TCPA to motions, which was frankly just silly from the outset. The good news is that this ruling in Ferchichi should get rid of a substantial number of misuses of the Texas TCPA, which has come under criticism because of these and similar misuses. The problem is not with the TCPA, of course, but with the lower Texas courts which entertain and sometimes endorse these misuses. The only way to stop that is for the Texas Supreme Court to do what is did here, which was to render a corrective opinion. Very likely, the Texas Supreme Court will have to hear a higher volume of TCPA appeals for a while before the Texas Court of Appeals finally gets on board with the program. Implicitly, the troubles of the Texas Supreme Court in herding the wet cats of the lower Texas courts onto the right track would be alleviated were Texas to adopt the UPEPA. This is because the UPEPA has the great benefit of uniformity, meaning that the lower courts could look to opinions from the appellate courts of other states to see what the right answer is, without falling for slick sounding but known to be incorrect arguments brought by creative litigants. But that is for another day.
Forbes
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
Two Courts Uphold UPEPA Fee Awards After Voluntary Dismissals
The UPEPA is weathering appellate decisions just fine so far. The Uniform Public Express Protection Act (UPEPA) in just a few years has become the most ubiquitous body of Anti-SLAPP law in the world. Like most other Anti-SLAPP laws, the UPEPA provides for a special motion to cause the dismissal at an early stage of meritless litigation which infringes upon a person's free speech and related rights. If the defendant in such a case wins the special motion and the offending cause of action is dismissed, then the defendant who brought the special motion must be awarded their attorney fees, expenses and costs in relation to the special motion. This provides a powerful deterrent to such meritless litigation being brought against them in the first place. But what if, after the UPEPA special motion is brought, the plaintiff who brought the offending cause of action decides not to contest the special motion but instead just voluntarily dismisses it? In that instance, can the defendant who went to the trouble of preparing and filing the UPEPA special motion still be awarded attorney fees for their trouble? The answer to this question was recently answered by two courts in different states (New Jersey and Kentucky) on two consecutive days, and which reached the same conclusion. We'll examine the opinions of those courts now. These opinions are Satz v. Keset Starr, 2025 WL 1522032 ( May 29, 2025), and Johnson v. Kearney, 2025 WL 1536078 ( May 30, 2025). In the Satz case in New Jersey, the defendants circulated a flyer that advocated that the plaintiff get a religious divorce. The flyer contained an unfavorable photo of the plaintiff and suggested a protest outside of the home of the plaintiff's parents. The plaintiff sued the defendants for a variety of things related to the flyer and asked for $30 million in damages. When the plaintiff moved for default judgment, the defendants responded to the motion with request that the case be dismissed under the UPEPA. Ultimately, the court granted the defendants' motion and that same day the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed its complaint. The defendants then moved to reopen the case for the purpose of assessing fees, costs and expenses under the UPEPA. The trial court, however, refused to consider the defendants' request on the basis that there was no evidence that the plaintiff filed his action was either frivolous or intended to harass the defendants. The defendants appealed this ruling. Now turning to the Johnson case in Kentucky, where two candidates in the 2024 Republican primary for state attorney were squabbling over an endorsement by the local Fraternal Order of Police. Ultimately, one candidate sued the other, and the other candidate (the defendant) filed a UPEPA special motion to dismiss. Concluding that the plaintiff had not acted in bad faith, the trial judge encouraged the plaintiff to voluntarily dismiss the complaint with prejudice to refiling. The plaintiff did dismiss the complaint and the judge refused to award the defendant fees, costs and expenses because the case had been dismissed. The defendant appealed this ruling. The courts in both Satz and Johnson reached the same conclusion in the same way. Both courts determined that the outcome could be determined by interpreting the plain text of the UPEPA without the need to reference external sources. The statutory interpretation of the UPEPA in these cases was very straightforward: First, the UPEPA provides that a voluntary dismissal of a challenged cause of action does not affect the moving party's right to seek attorney fees, costs and expenses; Second, the UPEPA deems a party's voluntary dismissal of a challenged cause of action ― while a UPEPA special motion is pending ― to establish that the moving party prevailed on special motion; and Third, the UPEPA states that the award of such attorney fees, costs and expenses is mandatory where the moving party has prevailed on the special motion. Therefore, where a cause of action has been voluntarily dismissed while a UPEPA cause of action is pending, the moving party is entitled to a mandatory award of attorney fees, costs and expenses despite the voluntarily dismissal. This was the ultimate ruling of both courts, which reversed the trial court and remanded the cases for the calculation of the attorney fees, costs and expenses to be awarded to the respective moving parties in each case. The Satz opinion additionally noted that one reason for this outcome was to keep a party who brought an offending cause of action from simply dismissing the cause of action and then possibly re-asserting it later. This would defeat the purpose of the UPEPA to free the defendant from having to further litigate the cause of action. The Johnson opinion commented on the fact that "good faith" by the party who filed the cause of action is not any defense to the UPEPA's mandatory award of attorney fees, costs and expenses ― it doesn't matter at all why that party brought the cause of action, only that it infringes upon protect rights. ANALYSIS Both of these appellate courts arrived at the result desired by the UPEPA drafting committee when we were writing the Act: In the event of a voluntary dismissal after a special motion has been brought, the moving party will still be entitled to mandatory attorney fees, costs and expenses. There was considerable debate within the UPEPA drafting committee over this outcome, mostly due to something called the innocent violator. Basically, the drafting committee realized that the cases which infringe upon protected expression could be divided into two categories. The first category is the classic SLAPP case which is intended to harass, punish, or retaliate, etc., against the speaker for the purpose of making them shut up. Recall that the acronym SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. The 'Strategic' part of this is that the action would intended ― specifically designed ― to cause harm to the speaker by forcing them to incur legal costs in defense. This wrongful intent characterizes this first category of cases infringing protected expression. The second category is exactly the opposite of the first: The second category is where the plaintiff who brought the cause of action had no intent to misuse the cause of action, but instead stumbled into an infringement of public expression because their counsel was lazy or careless, or the public expression issue was very technical and not easy to spot. This is the aforementioned innocent violator. The drafting committee recognized that an innocent violator should be treated differently than somebody who intentionally brought abusive litigation. But how should that treatment differ? There were suggestions that a warning letter should be sent before the special motion was brought, that the innocent violator should be allowed to dismiss or reframe the infringing cause of action without penalty, or that attorney fees should not be assessed against an innocent violator. In their opinions, the Satz and Johnson courts discuss these things as well (although whether the plaintiffs in those cases could be characterized as innocent violators is somewhat dubious). What was the solution? The idea of a warning letter ― similar to that required before a Rule 11 motion for sanctions is brought ― seemed like a good one. But there were at least two problems with this solution. First, it would be a complete waste of time to have a warning letter sent to the first (abusive) category of violators, who at any rate didn't deserve a warning. Second, if a warning letter was sent and the action thereafter voluntarily dismissed before the filing of the special motion, then the defendant (speaker) compensated for the legal fees for having the letter written and such letters can be quite costly. Thus, the warning letter idea was rejected. The next idea, being that the plaintiff should be allowed to voluntarily dismiss the infringing cause of action after the special motion was filed, was similarly rejected. Preparing and filing the special motion is costly, and if the plaintiff was simply allowed to voluntarily dismiss without any penalty, then the defendant could not be compensated for having to prepare and file the special motion. This was also a bad idea for the reason that a first category plaintiff engaged in abusive litigation could simply later re-file the same cause of action and cause the defendant the same trouble all over again. So this idea was rejected too. The third idea was to not assess attorney's fees against an innocent violator. While this sounds at first like a good idea, it is actually a terrible one. The problem here is the UPEPA would first have to define what an innocent violation was, and that would draw into question the plaintiff's intent. The parties would then have to litigate the plaintiff's intent, which would tremendously exacerbate the very litigation that the UPEPA was supposed to have quickly and efficiently gotten rid of in the first place. That idea was quickly axed. Where the UPEPA ended up is accurately described in the Satz and Johnson opinions: The plaintiff may voluntarily dismiss the cause of action that is the subject of the special motion, but that voluntary dismissal is treated as a resolution of the special motion in favor of the speaker and thus entitles the speaker to the mandatory award of attorney fees. This is a suitable middle-ground solution. By voluntarily dismissing the special motion, the plaintiff cuts off the attorney fees incurred by the speaker at the special motion ― the speaker could not, for instance, ask for attorney fees to file a reply brief (since no opposition brief was filed) or to attend the hearing on the special motion (which is no longer necessary). For those who would suggest that this outcome is harsh for an innocent violator, the bottom line is that if somebody is going to litigate in an area which might implicate protected expression issues, then they should be particularly careful. One who has stumbled into a violation of protected expression will not be rewarded by a 'get out of jail' card for their carelessness. This is basically what the Satz and Johnson opinions conclude and in this respect they are both right on target.
New York Post
20-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Associated Press moves to dismiss defamation claim from veteran who defeated CNN in court: ‘Without merit'
The Associated Press filed a motion to dismiss U.S. Navy Veteran Zachary Young's defamation lawsuit on Monday, insisting the complaint is 'without merit' and unjustly challenges the outlet's free speech rights. Young successfully sued CNN for defamation earlier this year after saying the network smeared him by implying he illegally profited when helping people flee Afghanistan on the 'black market' during the Biden administration's military withdrawal from the country in 2021. Advertisement When covering the trial in January, Associated Press media reporter David Bauder wrote that 'Young's business helped smuggle people out of Afghanistan.' Young's legal team has said that the Associated Press article 'went even further than CNN's falsehoods,' and updated the original complaint to include 40 AP articles that use the term 'smuggling' to describe criminal conduct. The court previously ruled that Young did nothing illegal, and he is seeking nearly $500 million in a defamation suit against the AP. The AP believes Young's suit should be tossed. Advertisement 'It is premised on the facially implausible contention that The AP made the exact same accusation—that Young had engaged in criminal activities in connection with his Afghan evacuations—that the Article made clear a jury had rejected in the CNN case,' AP's legal team wrote in the motion to dismiss. 'The AP now asks the Court to dismiss this lawsuit with prejudice under Florida's AntiSLAPP statute… which protect 'the rights of free speech in connection with public issues,'' the motion continued. 3 The Associated Press has filed a motion to dismiss U.S. Navy Veteran Zachary Young's defamation lawsuit. SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images 'This is a classic SLAPP lawsuit – a 'lawsuit that lack[s] legal merit but threatens to chill speech by imposing crushing legal expenses.'' Advertisement The AP believes its reporting is protected by Florida's fair report privilege, which its legal team wrote 'safeguards the ability of the press to report about legal and other official proceedings.' In addition, the AP's legal team wrote that the article 'cannot be reasonably read as conveying anything defamatory' about Young or his company, Nemex Enterprises. 3 The organization claims the complaint is 'without merit' and unjustly challenges the outlet's rights of freedom of speech. CNN Young's attorney, Daniel Lustig, said the motion to dismiss was expected, and he expects the Navy veteran to prevail. Advertisement 'AP's position is that words don't mean what they mean. That was CNN's defense. Zachary Young spent nearly three years fighting that fiction and after a court ruled in his favor and a jury affirmed it, the matter should have ended. But now he's back in the same courtroom, facing the same defense, advanced by the same lawyers, insisting once again that a plainly criminal accusation doesn't actually accuse him of a crime,' Lustig told Fox News Digital. 'If this feels familiar, it's because it is. The only thing that's changed is the logo on the letterhead. AP called Mr. Young a human smuggler, broadcast it around the world, and now claim they meant it in a nice way. When he asked them to correct a single word, they refused,' he continued. 3 Young was able to sue CNN for defamation earlier this year as the network implied that he illegally profited helping people flee Afghanistan on the 'black market' while the military withdrawal took place under President Biden in 2021. AP The AP has referred to the lawsuit as 'frivolous' in past statements to the press. The motion was filed with the 14th Judicial Circuit Court in Bay County, Florida, the same court where Young prevailed against CNN. Young is seeking at least $18 million in economic loss, $50-75 million in reputational harm, $5-10 million in emotional distress and $300-350 million in punitive damages, according to a Notice of Filing.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Associated Press moves to dismiss defamation claim from veteran who defeated CNN in court
The Associated Press filed a motion to dismiss U.S. Navy Veteran Zachary Young's defamation lawsuit on Monday, insisting the complaint is "without merit" and unjustly challenges the outlet's free speech rights. Young successfully sued CNN for defamation earlier this year after saying the network smeared him by implying he illegally profited when helping people flee Afghanistan on the "black market" during the Biden administration's military withdrawal from the country in 2021. When covering the trial in January, Associated Press media reporter David Bauder wrote that "Young's business helped smuggle people out of Afghanistan." Young's legal team has said that the Associated Press article "went even further than CNN's falsehoods," and updated the original complaint to include 40 AP articles that use the term "smuggling" to describe criminal conduct. The court previously ruled that Young did nothing illegal, and he is seeking nearly $500 million in a defamation suit against the AP. Navy Veteran Seeks Nearly $500 Million In Defamation Lawsuit Against Associated Press The AP believes Young's suit should be tossed. "It is premised on the facially implausible contention that The AP made the exact same accusation—that Young had engaged in criminal activities in connection with his Afghan evacuations—that the Article made clear a jury had rejected in the CNN case," AP's legal team wrote in the motion to dismiss. Read On The Fox News App "The AP now asks the Court to dismiss this lawsuit with prejudice under Florida's AntiSLAPP statute… which protect 'the rights of free speech in connection with public issues,'" the motion continued. "This is a classic SLAPP lawsuit – a 'lawsuit that lack[s] legal merit but threatens to chill speech by imposing crushing legal expenses.'" The AP believes its reporting is protected by Florida's fair report privilege, which its legal team wrote "safeguards the ability of the press to report about legal and other official proceedings." In addition, the AP's legal team wrote that the article "cannot be reasonably read as conveying anything defamatory" about Young or his company, Nemex Enterprises. Navy Veteran Who Proved Cnn Defamed Him Sues Associated Press, Says He Was Falsely Painted As 'Smuggler' Young's attorney, Daniel Lustig, said the motion to dismiss was expected, and he expects the Navy veteran to prevail. "AP's position is that words don't mean what they mean. That was CNN's defense. Zachary Young spent nearly three years fighting that fiction and after a court ruled in his favor and a jury affirmed it, the matter should have ended. But now he's back in the same courtroom, facing the same defense, advanced by the same lawyers, insisting once again that a plainly criminal accusation doesn't actually accuse him of a crime," Lustig told Fox News Digital. "If this feels familiar, it's because it is. The only thing that's changed is the logo on the letterhead. AP called Mr. Young a human smuggler, broadcast it around the world, and now claim they meant it in a nice way. When he asked them to correct a single word, they refused," he continued. Cnn Defamation Juror Would Have Awarded Navy Veteran 'Up To $100 Million' Before Settlement Was Reached The AP has referred to the lawsuit as "frivolous" in past statements to the press. The motion was filed with the 14th Judicial Circuit Court in Bay County, Florida, the same court where Young prevailed against CNN. Young is seeking at least $18 million in economic loss, $50-75 million in reputational harm, $5-10 million in emotional distress and $300-350 million in punitive damages, according to a Notice of article source: Associated Press moves to dismiss defamation claim from veteran who defeated CNN in court
