What are “SLAPPs”?

According to the California Anti-SLAPP Project, they are civil complaints or counterclaims (against either an individual or an organization) in which the alleged injury was the result of petitioning or free speech activities protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. (California Anti-SLAPP Project’s website is http://www.casp.net)

What is the Effect of a SLAPP?

"While most SLAPPs are meritless, they effectively achieve their principal purpose: to chill public debate on specific issues. Defending a SLAPP requires substantial money, time, and legal resources and thus diverts the defendant's attention away from the public issue. Equally important, however, a SLAPP also sends a message to others: you, too, can be sued if you speak up.” 

What do people get sued for doing?

Every year thousands of people are hit with SLAPPs for activities such as: 

• writing a letter to a newspaper
• reporting misconduct by public officials 
• speaking at public meetings
• filing complaints with officials over proposed environmentally destructive developments
• filing complaints with officials over violations of health and safety laws
• "whistle blowing" in corporations
• circulating a petition 
• lobbying for legislation
• peacefully demonstrating

Public participation is essential to a representative democracy. If our voices are stifled, our constitutional rights will be infringed upon and the ultimate result is censorship. We cannot let this occur. 

How do SLAPP suits affect the environment? 

“Eco-SLAPPs” are a frequent occurrence. Generally, an environmental group or an individual will petition the government over a project affecting the environment . . . such as the development of open space, or the reporting of polluters, or local complaints such as speaking out about landfills, waste burning, and other environmentally harmful practices that affect neighborhoods. 

Who files these suits?

SLAPPs are often brought by corporations, real estate developers, or government officials and entities against individuals who oppose them on public issues. Private parties or governmental entities -- those directly involved in destructive environmental practices -- sue those who have petitioned because they perceive the action as being injurious to the harmful activities. 

On what grounds can they sue public citizens?

Typically, SLAPPs are based on ordinary civil tort claims such as defamation, slander, libel, interference with contractual relations, and conspiracy. Most of these suits are subsequently dismissed, but not before the victim has paid out large sums of money to cover court costs and has been thrown into the public eye for months or even years. This unlawful intimidation pushes people into becoming less active and outspoken on issues that matter. 

What will this legislation do?

This legislation sets out the policy of discouraging SLAPPs and provides procedural remedies upon the filing of a suit. More specifically, it provides the following procedures in a SLAPP dismissal motion: “automatically making it a final summary judgment motion, requiring it to be heard quickly, providing for appeal if a decision is delayed or denied, suspending discovery, shifting the burden of proof to the SLAPP filer, applying the heightened scrutiny of ‘clear and convincing evidence,’ and authorizing the involved government body or the state attorney general to participate.” (SLAPPs: Getting Sued For Speaking Out, written by Penelope Canan and George W. Pring). Additionally, the bill includes a provision for attorneys’ fees and court expenses if the victim prevails, and provides a clause for SLAPPbacks. It further incorporates sanctions for filers and their attorneys if warranted. 

What about protecting people who lie? Should they really be protected? 

According to George W. Pring and Penelope Canan in SLAPPs: Getting Sued For Speaking Out, “…protecting…bad motives may not seem attractive 
or altruistic until one thinks what the alternative implies. The alternative is censorship, judicial censorship of the political process.” Lying, however, is not constitutionally protected and an individual can be sued under defamation 
and slander laws for lying. 

[The above information was obtained from the California Anti-SLAPP Project and from SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out, George W. Pring and Penelope Canan (1996)