by Paul Alan Levy
Judge Carl Barbier has issued a significant decision construing and applying the Lousiana anti-SLAPP statute. The ruling arose from a troubling lawsuit brought by Lousiana’s Capital Assistance Center against an author who, while a Harvard Law student, interned at the Center; based on information she had previously published in a pair of essays, the suit alleges that she was likely to publish confidential information about one of the plaintiff’s clients that she obtained during an internship in a forthcoming novel.
Although the court ultimately decided that the plaintiff’s claim would not be dismissed, the most significant part of the opinion is a lengthy discussion of plaintiff’s contention that the anti-SLAPP statute does not apply in federal court. I suppose I am prejudiced because it comes out the right way on the Erie question, but I found Judge Barbier’s decision of the policy questions implicated by the state statute and by the Erie issue, and his comparison between federal court procedures for summary disposition and the substantive purposes of the anti-SLAPP statute, to be thoughtful as well as compelling. Worth a read.
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