Libel

Singapore officials Monday amended the charge against blogger Gopalan Nair, a U.S. citizen who blogs from Fremont, California, accusing him of insulting a public official for his criticism of Singaporean Judge Belinda Ang that he published in his blog, Singapore Dissident, last month. The original charge had asserted that Nair insulted Ang in an email.

In late May 2008, Nair, a former Singaporean lawyer before he emigrated to the U.S., attended a sentencing hearing in the defamation trial of two members of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party. The defendants had been found guilty of libeling former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Lee Kuan Yew’s son. Lee Kuan Yew, whom Nair frequently criticized in his blog, testified at the hearing.

In his May 29, 2008 blog entry, Nair wrote that Ang, who presided over the hearing, "prostitut[ed] herself during the entire proceedings, by being nothing more than an employee of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and his son and carrying out their orders." In another blog entry, Nair challenged Lee Kuan Yew to charge him with defamation, writing "I am now within your jurisdiction.... What are you going to do about it?" On the evening of May 31, Singaporean police arrested Nair in his hotel and put him in solitary confinement until he was released on bail on June 5.   read more »

Floyd Abrams published an op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal that highlights the impact of foreign law, especially English libel law, on speech in the United States. Abrams notes:   read more »

A Vermont judge has dismissed the libel lawsuit filed against Chris Grotke and Lise LePage, co-founders and owners of iBrattleboro.com, a widely acclaimed community journalism site based in Brattleboro, Vermont, ruling that Grotke and LePage are immune from liability under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("CDA 230").

The lawsuit, which was filed by Effie Mayhew on November 16, 2007, alleges that David Dunn, the former executive director of Rescue Inc., an emergency medical services organization where Mayhew works as a volunteer, libeled her in a comment on the site. While Mayhew's complaint didn't make any allegations that Grotke or LePage authored the allegedly defamatory statements, her lawyer (as well as several commentators in Vermont) asserted that iBrattleboro.com should be liable because the site admins failed to edit or remove Dunn's comment.   read more »

Breaking news from Above the Law: Anthony Ciolli, former defendant in the controversial AutoAdmit case, has filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania state court against the two plaintiffs in that case, their lawyers, ReputationDefender and one of its employees, and the shadowy "T14 Talent." He alleges wrongful initiation of civil proceedings, abuse of process, libel, slander, false light invasion of privacy, tortious interference with contract, and unauthorized use of name or likeness. It looks like Ciolli has outed one of the pseudonymous defendants in the AutoAdmit case -- "pauliewalnuts."

Here's the complaint -- we're still digesting it.

Update:  I didn't mean to be snarky about this lawsuit. Assuming that his allegations are true, I have a lot of sympathy for Ciolli, and he appears to have some actionable claims. Marc Randazza, his attorney in the AutoAdmit case, has a thoughtful post on the new lawsuit.

I previously blogged at length about Mario Lavandeira's victory under California's anti-SLAPP statute (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 425.16) in the libel lawsuit brought against him by celebrity DJ and Lindsey Lohan pal Samantha Ronsen. Now, my RSS feeds are clogged with reports that the California court has awarded Lavendeira nearly $85,000 in attorneys fees under the anti-SLAPP statute. I guess that's what happens when you mess with a blogger with some resources! Kudos to Bryan Freedman, Lavandeira's attorney, for defending this case so successfully.