Coal Baron Sues Activist For Defamation

[kristopher]

Coal Baron Sues Activist For Defamation
BY ARI PHILLIPS ON NOVEMBER 4, 2013 AT 12:49 PM

In late September, Robert Murray, owner of the Ohio-based coal giant, Murray Energy Corporation, filed a lawsuit against Mike Stark, an activist and journalist, and The Huffington Post. The complaint accuses Stark of defamation and invasion of privacy for his article “Meet the Extremist Coal Baron Bankrolling Ken Cuccinelli’s Campaign” about Murray’s donations to Virginia gubernatorial candidate Cuccinelli published in The Huffington Post on September 20th.

On November 1st Stark responded by filing a motion asking for the dismissal of the charges for the case. Stark is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and David Halperin, former Senior Vice President of the Center for American Progress.

In an article about the call for dismissal, Halperin writes of the motion that “We believe Mr. Murray’s case has no merit”:

“All the facts alleged by Mike Stark in his article are true, and the statements about which Mr. Murray complains are all expressions of opinion. The lawsuit, however, may have the effect of stifling debate about policy issues and about Mr. Murray and his company. So we are asking the judge to promptly dismiss it.”

In the original Huffington Post article, Stark wrote that by accepting money from Murray Energy, Cuccinelli was accepting “$30,000 from an extremist billionaire that is funding an Obama impeachment effort, that allegedly extorts money from his low-wage employees, and fires his workforce wholesale in fits of spite when electoral results disappoint him.”

The use of the word ‘extremist’ is one of the main points of Murray’s lawsuit...

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/04/2882461/coal-lawsuit-murray-energy/

[Jim Lane]

1. This lawsuit certainly seems like pure harassment.

Expression of opinion is constitutionally protected.

This doesn't mean you can slap "opinion" in front of a defamation and shield yourself. "It's my opinion that Congressman Throckmorton took a bribe to vote that way" is defamatory if he didn't take a bribe.

Calling someone an "extremist" is just opinion and doesn't convey any statement as to a matter of fact, so it can't be defamatory.

It's also interesting that, per the linked article, this litigious coal baron includes a claim for invasion of privacy. Traditionally, that tort means the public disclosure of private facts. From the summary in the linked article, I don't see any basis for that, and of course it's an odd pairing with the defamation claim, which depends on a finding that the statements made were not factually accurate.

[bananas]

2. It's called "SLAPP": Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation

"The typical SLAPP plaintiff does not normally expect to win the lawsuit. The plaintiff's goals are accomplished if the defendant succumbs to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs or simple exhaustion and abandons the criticism. A SLAPP may also intimidate others from participating in the debate."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation

A strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) is a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.[1]

The typical SLAPP plaintiff does not normally expect to win the lawsuit. The plaintiff's goals are accomplished if the defendant succumbs to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs or simple exhaustion and abandons the criticism. A SLAPP may also intimidate others from participating in the debate. A SLAPP is often preceded by a legal threat. The difficulty is that plaintiffs do not present themselves to the Court admitting that their intent is to censor, intimidate or silence their critics. Hence, the difficulty in drafting SLAPP legislation, and in applying it, is to craft an approach which affords an early termination to invalid abusive suits, without denying a legitimate day in court to valid good faith claims.

<snip>

[kristopher]

4. It's a favorite instrument in the ALEC toolkit. nt

[bananas]

3. Another example

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101638511