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Anti-SLAPP Defense Nixed in Redding Biography Dispute

By Steven H. Pollak
June 29, 2005

Lawyers defending a biographer of Otis Redding failed in their effort to use Georgia's anti-SLAPP statute to block a libel suit brought over the book “Otis!”.

In a six sentence order, Judge Patsy Y. Porter of Georgia's Fulton County State Court denied the lawyers' arguments that the state's law barring suits that are Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (known as the anti-SLAPP statute) protected author Scott Freeman, a former senior editor of Atlanta Magazine, from a $15-million suit claiming that his Otis Redding biography included unsubstantiated “street rumors” and lies. Walden v. Freeman, No. 04VS064224.

The Georgia General Assembly in 1996 passed the anti-SLAPP measure to protect citizens from suits filed to silence speech about matters of “public interest or concern.” The law, O.C.G.A. Sec. 9-11-11.1, is commonly used to defend claims against public critics of government entities or operations, rather than against defamation suits.

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