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Rashad Richey drops lawsuit against Andre Walker
I received a message from Andre Walker today that Rashad Richey has dropped the lawsuit against him. Congratulations for Andre and the good guys for winning this one!
Last month I wrote a blog post about Georgia Democratic Party Official Rashad Richey suing blogger Andre Walker for defamation. Andre Walker is a former democratic official, turned conservative blogger who writes for Georgia Unfiltered. I wrote that essentially Richey had no case against Walker and that the entire purpose of the case was to intimidate Richey.
The advice I give to anyone in this situation is don’t panic, and Call Me. Most of the time it is a nothing case, and that the best thing you can do is not be intimidated by meaningless threats. I applaud Andre for not backing down and defending his first amendment rights.
SLAPP’d blogger fights back
A few days ago I wrote about the case of Andre Walker, who is being sued for defamation by Georgia Democratic Party Political Director, Ali Rashad Richey. In the post I mentioned how the causes of action were pretty much moot from the beginning, and how the purpose of the lawsuit was not to win, but merely to silence Walker.
Today, Ask a Cyber Lawyer received a copy of a letter from Walker’s attorney to Richey’s attorney, which both responds to the claims made, and demand to withdraw the complaint, or else Walker will proceed with a claim under the Geogia Abusive Litigation Act. O.G.G.A. §51-7-80 et seq. The full text of the letter is below:
When you are threatened by a corporate entity, a political party, or a government body, for items posted on your blog. Do not panic. Contact an attorney (preferably Skyles Law Group) and you will be taken care of. Make sure that they not only lose, but that they are hurt in the process. Andre has not backed down. He is continuing to voice his opinion. His work can be seen at Georgia Unfiltered.
GA Democratic Party Official Sues Bloggers
It’s not surprising that when a politician doesn’t like what is being said about him or her, they go on the offensive. So when I heard that a blogger from Georgia was being sued for defamation, interference with business practices, and negligent infliction of emotional distress, I wanted to look into it further.
The short story is Andre Walker, a former Democrat turned Republican, blogs about Georgia Politics on Georgia Unfiltered. One of the targets of his blog is Georgia Democratic Party Political Director Ali Rashad Richey. Walker did some digging into public records and found some unsavory information about Richey, including convictions, paternity tests, and unpaid child support. Most shockingly, he found out that Richey was on the payroll of a Democratic Party state senator, while he was in jail.
The law suit is a classic SLAPP suit, or Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. I have written about this extensively before. Georgia does have an Anti-SLAPP law, but it is very weak. It only applies to legislators who are suing others as a means of intimidating them into silence about pending legislation.
The crux of the defamation lawsuit was the accusation that Richey was a convicted felon. Whether he was or not is a significant issue, but what is important to this is whether or not bloggers are afforded the same first amendment rights as any other journalists. It appears that the Georgia Democratic Party doesn’t seem to think so.
Retraction Requirement
Georgia has a requirement that before anyone can proceed with a suit for defamation, be it slander or libel, they must first make a request for retraction. (Ga. Code Ann. § 55-5-11,12. for libel and slander respectively). It appears from the wording of the complaint that the complaint that there was no retraction requested. Instead, the retraction is a part of the damages demand. It seems that the only way that Richey would be able to succeed here is to argue that a blog is not a “publication”. Would they also argue then that the First Amendment rights do not apply to journalists?
Libel or Slander?
It appears as well that Richey’s attorneys do not know how to consider a blog as a publication. They decided to sue for both libel and slander. In general, libel only applies to the written word, while slander applies to the spoken word. In the complaint, the counts for libel and slander pretty much say the exact same thing, except one says “libel” and the other says “slander”. So which one is it?
The Likely Result
In the end, the lawsuit this lawsuit is not about winning. It is about intimidation. They want to silence Walker from saying anything about Richey, so they are suing him to scare him into silence. That is how a SLAPP suit works. Lawsuits are expensive to defend. Often times it is easier to shut up than defend against the lawsuit, even though you will eventually win, and probably get attorney’s fees taboot.
It does again illustrate the need to develop insurance and legal defense programs for bloggers. There is something on its way for bloggers. Stay tuned.
James Skyles
