The plaintiff's goals are accomplished if the defendant succumbs to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs, or simple exhaustion and abandons the criticism.
In some cases, particularly in the context of investigative journalism, repeated frivolous litigation against a defendant may raise the cost of directors and officers and other liability insurance for that party, interfering with an organization's ability to operate.
SLAPPs bring about freedom of speech concerns due to their chilling effect and are often difficult to filter out and penalize because the plaintiffs attempt to obfuscate their intent to censor, intimidate, or silence their critics.
These laws often function by allowing a defendant to file a motion to strike or dismiss on the grounds that the case involves protected speech on a matter of public concern.
[9] Other widely mentioned elements of a SLAPP are the actual effectiveness at silencing critics, the timing of the suit, inclusion of extra or spurious defendants (such as relatives or hosts of legitimate defendants), inclusion of plaintiffs with no real claim (such as corporations that are affiliated with legitimate plaintiffs), making claims that are very difficult to disprove or rely on no written record, ambiguous or deliberately mangled wording that lets plaintiffs make spurious allegations without fear of perjury, refusal to consider any settlement (or none other than cash), characterization of all offers to settle as insincere, extensive and unnecessary demands for discovery, attempts to identify anonymous or pseudonymous critics, appeals on minor points of law, and demands for broad rulings when appeal is accepted on such minor points of law.
[13] The term was originally defined as "a lawsuit involving communications made to influence a governmental action or outcome, which resulted in a civil complaint or counterclaim filed against nongovernment individuals or organizations on a substantive issue of some public interest or social significance."
The right to petition, granted by Edgar the Peaceful, King of England in the 10th century, antedates Magna Carta in terms of its significance in the development of democratic institutions.
[15][16] New York Supreme Court Judge J. Nicholas Colabella said in reference to SLAPPs: "Short of a gun to the head, a greater threat to First Amendment expression can scarcely be imagined.
[22] A private member's bill introduced in 2001 by Graham Steele (NDP, Halifax Fairview) proposed a "Protection of Public Participation Act" to dismiss proceedings or claims brought or maintained for an improper purpose, awarding punitive or exemplary damages (effectively, a "SLAPP back") and protection from liability for communication or conduct which constitutes public participation.
The bill proposed a mechanism for an order to dismiss strategic lawsuits which attack free expression on matters of public interest, with full costs (but not punitive damages) and on a relatively short timeframe, if the underlying claims had no reasonable prospect of success.
[citation needed] Prior to Ontario enacting its own Anti-SLAPP law the bill was invoked there (and then Supreme Court of Canada docket 33819).
[36] A separate 2011 decision in Quebec Superior Court had ruled that Barrick Gold had to pay $143,000 to the book's three authors and publisher, Les Éditions Écosociété Inc., to prepare their defence in a "seemingly abusive" strategic lawsuit against public participation.
[37] Despite the Québec ruling, the book Noir Canada that documented the relationship between Canadian mining corporations, armed conflict and political actors in Africa was never published as part of a settlement which, according to the authors, was only made for the sole purpose of resolving the three-and-a-half-year legal battle.
[44] These states are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut,[45] Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky,[46] Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts,[47] Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas,[48][49] Utah, Vermont, Virginia,[50] and Washington.
[38] In 2010, Obama signed the SPEECH Act on the closely related issue of libel tourism, offering more protections for suits filed in foreign countries.
[54] In September 2017, a naturopath in Arizona named Colleen Huber filed a defamation lawsuit, preceded by two cease and desist letters, against Britt Marie Hermes, a naturopathy whistleblower.
Jann Bellamy of Science-Based Medicine speculates that this is "due to good old forum shopping for a more plaintiff-friendly jurisdiction" as there are no protections against SLAPP lawsuits in Germany.
[citation needed] In 2020, Karan Bajaj, the founder of WhiteHat Jr., now owned by Byju's, filed a 2.6 million dollar lawsuit against Pradeep Poonia, a software engineer who publicly accused the company of having a toxic work environment and unethical business practices.
[81] During 2016, Amir Bramly, who at the time was being investigated and subsequently indicted for an alleged Ponzi scheme,[84] sued for libel Tomer Ganon, a Calcalist reporter, privately for ₪1 million in damages, due to a news item linking him to Bar Refaeli.
To prevent publication, the government-established Lovdata foundation demanded an immediate injunction against two project volunteers, Håkon Wium Lie and Fredrik Ljone, that the website be shut down.
[95] A postjudgement hearing on 30 and 31 August 2018 resulted in a reduction in the injunction's effects, most significantly that the Database Rights Section did not extend to rulings published before 2005.
[99][100] A 2021 libel action brought against the publisher HarperCollins and the author and journalist Catherine Belton over the latter's book Putin's People was described by former Conservative cabinet minister David Davis as a SLAPP.
[101] Ministers later said that they would reform the legal system to prevent "intimidation lawsuits"; amendments to this effect were proposed for an anti-corruption economic crime bill before Parliament in March 2022.