Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Premium Dive #4 - Am I Being Defamed? (Part Two): Navigating Defamation Lawsuits With Lessons From (former) Defendant Mandy Matney, and Plaintiff Buster Murdaugh

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

As you likely know, we are taking off from COJ and True Sunlight this week to focus on educating students around the Midwest so thank you for understanding and we hope you enjoy this bonus content! In today’s Premium Dive Bonus episode, Attorney Rebecca Lindahl and reporter Sam Berlin discuss the implications of Buster's media interviews and public appearances, which could make him a public figure, complicating his defamation case. They highlight the legal protections for press, such as the Fair Reporting Privilege and Absolute Privilege. Also, Mandy Matney and producer/husband David recount Mandy's defamation lawsuit involving former USC professor, David Voros, criticizing the attorney Bill Padgett for pursuing baseless claims. Mandy shares the emotional and financial toll of the lawsuit, which cost over $33,000 plus all the stress, emotional toll, and havoc it caused. Becky Lindahl advises on handling defamation claims, emphasizing the importance of gathering evidence and seeking legal counsel early.   We believe in the importance of anti-SLAPP laws and the need for legal protections against strategic lawsuits aimed at chilling public speech or silencing specific individuals. Special thank you to Rebecca Lindahl for lending her voice to today's show and you can learn more about her and her firm here: Rebecca K. Lindahl Partner and Chair, Commercial Litigation Group Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP https://www.katten.com Join Luna Shark Premium today at Lunashark.Supercast.com. Premium Members also get access to searchable case files, written articles with documents, case photos, episode videos and exclusive live experiences with our hosts on lunasharkmedia.com all in one place. CLICK HERE to learn more: https://bit.ly/3BdUtOE. And for those just wanting ad-free listening without all the other great content, we now offer ad-free listening on Apple Podcast through a subscription to Luna Shark Plus on the Apple Podcasts App. Or become a Premiere Member on YouTube for exclusive videos and ad-free episodes. Visit our events page Lunasharkmedia.com/events where you can learn about the upcoming in-person and virtual appearances from hosts or submit your own ideas at lunasharkmedia.com/newevents. Or follow @mandy_matney on Instagram for the latest pop-ups. SUNscribe to our free email list to get that special offer for first time members, receive alerts on bonus episodes, calls to action, new shows and updates. CLICK HERE to learn more: https://bit.ly/3KBMJcP What We're Buying... Hungry Root - https://hungryroot.com/mandy to get 40% off your first delivery and get your free veggies.. Hungry Root is the easiest way to eat healthy. They send you fresh, high-quality groceries, simple, delicious recipes, and essential supplements. Task Rabbit - Use promo code "mandy" at https://www.taskrabbit.com/ for 15% off your task. Task Rabbit connects you with skilled Taskers to help with cleaning, moving, furniture assembly, home repairs, and more. Here's a link to some of our favorite things: https://amzn.to/4cJ0eVn And a special thank you to our other amazing sponsors: Microdose.com, PELOTON, and VUORI. Use promo code "MANDY" for a special offer! *** ALERT: If you ever notice audio errors in the pod, email [e-mail] and we'll send fun merch to the first listener that finds something that needs to be adjusted! *** For current & accurate updates: TrueSunlight.com facebook.com/TrueSunlightPodcast/ Instagram.com/TrueSunlightPod Twitter.com/mandymatney Twitter.com/elizfarrell youtube.com/@LunaSharkMedia tiktok.com/@lunasharkmedia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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In place of our regular True Sunlight episode this week, reporter and producer Sam Berlin will continue her deep dive with attorney Becky Lindahl to discuss the complexities of defamation cases. The concepts are key to understanding how defamation is handled in different states, but also how to interpret SLAPP lawsuits. And to recognize that protections thwarting, frivolous, or SLAPP lawsuits are so important to freeing up our justice system for real victims.

We will be back next week with more shocking developments in the Micah Francis story, Buster's defamation lawsuit, Elex appeals, and the Marion, Kansas raids. Until then, let's dive in. In our last premium deep dive on defamation, we discussed the complexities of public versus private figures and whether or not Buster is considered public. Here is North Carolina based attorney Becky Lindahl. He certainly didn't ask for this to happen to him. I think everyone would agree with that. But since these tragic events in his life have occurred, he has done some things that

intentionally place himself into the conversation. So the very best and clearest example of that is that he sat down with Fox News and did a recorded interview. And that's sort of the lowest hanging fruit to point at and say he's injected himself into this conversation. So if I were defending the claim, that would be something that I would be very focused on, is the fact that he gave this interview. I'm not sure whether he gave other interviews to non-on-camera outlets. I'm only aware of seeing him do that one particular on-camera interview. But to the extent that he spoke to other media sources, then that would be relevant evidence as well, that he was injecting himself into the public discourse. If he's giving statements to the

press, if he's issuing just general press statements, so not necessarily even speaking to a particular member of the press, but just giving a, putting a press release out there or having his attorneys or attorneys acting on his behalf give a press conference. I mean, those are ways that he's, that he could inject himself into the conversation here. But it's a very tricky question. And I think one that, you know, there's always in defamation cases, there's certain issues that tend to bubble up very quickly. So are they a public figure is one of them. slap lawsuits, which I think we'll talk about, that's another issue that can pop up very quickly. And they sort of become the big issues in the case right from the get go. And I think that's one that

will be a big issue in the case right from the job. And we'll see Buster saying most likely that he is he didn't want this to happen to him, he's just trying to live his life. And, you know, the media defendant saying, no, no, no, you sat down on camera. These people can also choose to capitalize on this newfound fame and become a limited purpose figure by getting involved in commercials, for example, and then slowly moving back into private life. So where would J.P. Miller fall into all of this? Let's like pretend that the silliness of his persona

in the past whatever had never happened and he was just the pastor of a church. That alone is probably enough to at least get him most of the way there because he's not the pastor of a church. That alone is probably enough to at least get him most of the way there because he's not the pastor of, you know, First Baptist Church in Monroe, North Carolina, where he's not going on TV and not raising, you know, he's a mega church guy, right? So that probably gets in there. But then you add in the TikTok stuff. I mean, he was on, he was very online for a while. I don't think he is anymore. I think he's kind of shut that down, maybe. But he's, he's been, you know, traveling all over the internet to give interviews. So that certainly made him a public

figure in my view. Theoretically, he could have been not a public figure or a limited public figure or maybe, you know, he could have made the argument that, oh, he's just a church pastor who's there. This terrible thing happened to his wife. He's not a public figure. So by doing all of these interviews, what he's doing is elevating his status from less public to more public. So there's that. He's making it harder to defame him and it's an unforced error in my view. I mean it's easier to sit still and do nothing than it is to go on TV and say things. So that made no sense to me. The other thing that was very interesting to me was it almost seemed

like he was trying to say encouraging people to talk about him might somehow be helpful for a defamation lawsuit. And that's interesting from a reputation and damages standpoint because you should never want to be the plaintiff in a lawsuit. It's not something to aspire to. It's not a source of income. It's because it's like I said, it's taxing in a lot of different ways. It costs resources both financial and emotional.

But ultimately the point of litigation is to provide a remedy to somebody whose rights have been injured. So you should not receive a remedy unless you've suffered an injury. It's not a pot of gold that you just stumble upon. It's to compensate you for an injury. So if you're going out and saying, please injure me so that I can recover, it's going to make it harder for you to recover all of the gold that you want to recover.

And the fact that he said on national TV that he was trying to assist his defamation litigation efforts by going on TV. If I were litigating against him in the future, I would just run that on a loop in front of the jury. He just wrote somebody's closing argument for him. The court also gives special privileges to members of the press, which protect them from liability and frivolous lawsuits. This is also called the fair reporting privilege.

Another privilege called the absolute privilege gives members of the press protections when reporting on judicial proceedings, legislative debates, political broadcasts or speeches, and in my opinion, the most important, reporting on public documents. This means that a statement directly taken from any public documents can be published by the press even if the statement is considered defamatory. Members of the press also have what is called the critics privilege or fair comment. Essentially, journalists can state opinions on public figures and politicians without fear of retaliation

from said figures. Here's Becky again. So the press privilege is also called the fair reporting privilege. And most states, I think probably all states have some version of this. And what the press privilege or fair reporting privilege says is that a journalist who fairly and accurately reports on a proceeding or a government matter is not liable for defamation if the statements that they reported were false. So, for example, if a reporter goes to a city council meeting and it's a wild city council meeting and people are saying things from the public speakers lectern that turn out not to be true, but the reporter has accurately reported

what happened at the city council meeting. The reporter, it should not be liable for defamation. Now, the key there is that it has to actually be accurate reporting. So if the reporter goes to a city council meeting and writes a article about what people said at the lectern and there's a mistake in it, or they interpret instead of reporting a quote, they interpret the quote in a way that makes it inaccurate,

then the fair reporting privilege may not apply. And also the fair reporting privilege applies to public and official meetings, court proceedings, things that are said out loud in public. So unofficial or private conversations may not necessarily be protected by the fair reporting privilege. privilege. But again, this is also very state dependent. Some states have a much more robust body of law or statutory protection around defamatory statements. So it does vary from state to state. So starting with what protections they have. So if they are accurately reporting information that is contained in public records as verifiable or that occurred in public proceedings like the trial, then those statements either are true and they are shielded by the affirmative defense of truth or they are covered by the fair reporting privilege because these agencies,

the media agencies, media outlets were reporting things that happened in court or things that happened in a judicial proceeding before the trial occurred. Where they could get into trouble, and where I think based on my reading of Buster's lawsuit, where I think he's aiming, is some of the statements or visual representations that make it appear as if maybe figures within the Murdoch orbit were Buster. So you know, obviously he has very recognizable red hair. So if there was visual imagery that was intended to create an implication that it was Buster, perhaps that might be the best route for Buster to pursue,

but it's still an uphill battle because this was a publicized trial, the pre-trial proceedings were publicized, and many of those documentaries rely very heavily on actual audio of things that happened. And if it's actual audio and it's not being manipulated or edited deceptively, then it should be protected. David here.

And while I normally just read documents, I want to add a little exposition to introduce this next segment. In Mandy's defamation case levied by, in my opinion, two unhinged individuals, Mandy was forced to defend herself for doing exactly what Becky is describing here. Mandy reported on public documents that alleged wrongdoing by a former USC professor named David Voros and his girlfriend Alexandra Staskos. You can check the episode description for the allegations and other public documents. As public documents, we are eager to share what women at USC alleged that Voros did to

staff and students. Because what was alleged is despicable. These two sued a number of media agencies, including the state, the Post and Courier, Mandy's former employer, and Mandy personally, meaning they wanted to collect damages from Mandy and other directly named defendants for publishing public documents, referencing allegations against this former

professor. Mandy's former employer accepted service for the suit without telling her, and obviously we did not think that their plan of joint representation would have her best interests at heart. So we decided to find our own representation and unimaginable stress compounding Mandy's already complicated life in the thickest part of the Murdoch coverage. It's bad enough that the University of South Carolina settled with Voros' accusers and allowed him to retire quietly. But I believe this emboldened him to pursue this defamation case against Mandi and other news agencies.

I believe his attorney, Bill Paget, emboldened him by taking the case. And I believe that there needs to be consequences for attorneys who pursue these frivolous cases for unhinged plaintiffs. Here's a clip from True Sunlight 68, where Mandy gets rightfully heated about Bill Padgett's decision to pursue baseless claims for his unstable clients. I told y'all how I was sued in 2022, and that claim was completely frivolous as a judge ultimately decided last year. But that lawsuit sat for two years

before I was officially dismissed. David and I spent over $30,000 defending that claim because our system has no process for a case like this one that doesn't even pass the first whiff of a smell test. In my case, the truth was on my side, the law was on my side, and I was privileged enough to have the money to find a good defamation attorney in case the system went haywire. I lost a lot of sleep thinking about what if my case ended up with a judge who I had called out in my reporting.

So I paid for the best attorney I could find, simply in fear of getting screwed by the same justice system we have exposed in this podcast. But I learned from that. I learned a lot from that. I learned that the system welcomes baseless claims, perhaps because our legislator is run mostly by attorneys who profit from this. And it typically takes years for those claims to be dismissed, even if you do everything right and there really is no claim to begin with.

I've learned that there are rarely consequences for lawyers who take on these frivolous cases that are nothing more than litigious bullying and abusing the justice system. If you do want your money back or if you want the attorney to be held accountable in your case, you have to pay more money for your attorney to fight for that. And it is essentially a game of exhaustion. A game in which narcissists, with lawyers on their side, love. money for your attorney to fight for that. And it is essentially a game of exhaustion. A game in which narcissists, with lawyers on their side, love. For us, it was not worth the headache to continue to fight for accountability in a case that

I had already won. But I do want to say as a side note to the few hundred thousand people listening to this episode, shame on you, Bill Padgett of the HHP Law Group in Columbia, South Carolina. Shame on you for filing that frivolous case against me that never had a chance of succeeding. Shame on you for not dropping it when you should have. And shame on you for filing other meritless claims against other hardworking journalists who did nothing wrong. We all have a job to do, but you chose to do this with your law degree.

I don't forgive and I don't forget. I will continue to tell anyone who listens that you, Bill Padgett of the HHP Law Group, that you chose to legally bully journalists. Your decision to bolster the BS claims against me by choosing to represent an unhinged woman who harassed me for years and even threatened a judge with scorched earth. Well, your decision to file that lawsuit emboldened those against me and largely contributed to the depression that I am still recovering from. Maybe in the future, lawyers like yourself will pause and say no when they are tempted to make a cheap buck off of a baseless claim. Or maybe you will continue to poorly represent lawyers in South Carolina. Your parents must be so proud. The justice system can be intimidating, but it doesn't have to be.

We all want a drink from the same cup of justice, and it starts with learning about our legal system. My name is Mandi Matney, and together with journalist Liz Farrell and world-renowned attorney Eric Bland, we create the perfect trifecta of legal expertise, journalistic integrity, and a fire lit to expose the truth wherever it leads. We all encounter a part of our justice systems at one point, so why not get prepared while being entertained with tales from the newsroom and the courtroom? Cup of Justice has amazing special guests

like Sheryl Crow, Vinnie Politan, Emily D. Baker, and other experts to share their take on the bright side of the truth. Lunashark Media invites you to gain knowledge, insight, and tools to hold your own or hold public agencies accountable. Search for Cup of Justice wherever you get your podcast or visit cupofjusticepod.com. And I'll say it with Mandy, shame on you Bill Padgett and also shame on you Russell Be Wrong

for taking up JP's mantle. You are just as awful, in my opinion. Even though Mandy was dismissed from her defamation case before any depositions were taken or any discovery took place, that is exactly what Buster is seeking from Warner Brothers, Netflix, Cinemart, Campfire and all the other named parties. It will be interesting to see what happens in Buster's case, as Eric, Mandy, and Liz note in COJ 89. But that's what's slightly encouraging about the Buster defamation lawsuit is maybe, and this is very possible, and I'm not blaming, I don't know what's been going on with Sled's investigation. However, I do know law enforcement officers and it's in

even Sled, it is hard for them to point the finger at one another. They do not like to do that and I feel like and I've always felt like this investigation could and can be solved with pressure on the highway patrol and just revealing what actually was going on behind the scenes because nothing makes sense from beginning to end in that investigation. And like we've talked about, a lot of those highway patrol officers have come out and said we were getting pressure and saying all these very vague things. And we just need to know what was going on there, where they were getting pressure, why they wrote certain things down, why they ignored certain things. And I hope that Buster's defamation

lawsuit gives us some of those answers because it could be possible that Sled is just not going there with the highway patrol because of personal political reasons. Oh, I think it's gone. And that's why I said that the discovery process in a civil case is so much broader than what can be done in a criminal case that sometimes lawyers are more effective than law enforcement investigators because of subpoena power, of the ability to depose somebody. So we shall see. And Buster bears the burden of proof in his case on defamation, and then the defense has

an affirmative defense of truth, which is, and they have a burden to prove it. So there's these competing people, and I think it will yield something. Whether it yields something that reveals what happened, wait and see. But I think it's a good thing. I'm kind of happy Buster did it. I'm really happy. I mean, so I'll say that in reserve because obviously there's, I don't like to see media getting sued but I also think that there was, I can see it through his eyes. You know, I can understand that. Yeah, I can totally understand that.

Yeah, a bridge too far. That said, I mean, we can't, we're not even talking about breadcrumbs anymore. There's a loaf of bread sitting on this path that will get you to your answers, I think. Lots of loafs. So it's like, I wish investigators, yeah, there's lots of loaves of bread here.

There's just a boulez and Frenchuettes like just all down the road. And I don't understand why law enforcement, and maybe they are and we just don't know it. But I will say like, if I were, oh God, if I had the power that they have, if I had the ability to investigate this case from the inside, you have no, I mean, it would be like lighting a fuse. I would start with the last person interviewed in the case and I would work my way backward. Maybe it'll take me nowhere, but I have a feeling it's going to get you somewhere. And I think like you said, Eric, like the ability of these lawyers who in two days, it's going to be, is it 30 business days or 30 calendar days you have to respond to it?

Calendar, but they're're gonna get extensions. Okay, so in two days will be 30 days since Buster filed his lawsuit. Some will answer, but some will have gotten an extension. Yeah, so we'll get to see, hopefully we'll get to start to see some names. We don't know who these defendants are being represented by. Hopefully we'll get to start to see what this is gonna look look like and how hard they're going to go in defending it. So all of this. They could also bring in third parties. So it's a claim of Buster versus these defendants.

And then these defendants can do a third party action against others over here that may not be named or have culpability that should be shared. Like who? Don't know. We just don't know if Netflix, some of these people got some information from somebody else and they're not named. It just, until the playing field is fixed, which usually takes about 90 days

for all the parties to get in. And we'll, like you said, we'll know the law firms, we know them, some of them, we know their MO, we'll know whether they're to do a scorched earth. And listen, Sean King is, he's about to work. I mean, really work. Well, good. We'll see. So yeah, I mean, and speaking of defamation cases, Mandy, congratulations. I'm very happy

for you. This was one of the dumbest lawsuits I've seen. Mandy years ago reported on a professor at University of South Carolina who was accused of sexual harassment by, I believe it was two professors and maybe were the students as well. So you got sued for defamation as part of the publication you worked for before this and that publication got sued as well along with the state newspaper and Post and Carrier. Every single reporter was just referring to the lawsuit. Like they were it's it's it's a fact a lawsuit was filed against this professor.

And here are the details that are in that lawsuit. Why wouldn't you report it? It's a matter of public concern. He's getting paid by the public. You would not be doing your job, Mandy. Why wouldn't you report it? It's a matter of public concern. He's getting paid by the public. You would not be doing your job, Mandy, if you didn't report it. This is a public university. He's paid with public funds.

This is crazy. So along with the filing of that came systematic bullying online from his supporter or supporters, just constant harassment. For years. For years. Years. Yeah, years. And it's getting out of this lawsuit, I think was a huge triumph for Mandy. And fortunately for the, I mean, the other defendants in the case,

I think are going to benefit from the work that she and David did in this case, fortunately. And Mandy, you were dismissed with prejudice, which was very important, the words with prejudice. That's what you wanted, right? Correct. Explain that, Eric. Under Rule 41 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, when you dismiss a case, a plaintiff can dismiss it as long as there's no counterclaims or a claim for motion or fees and costs. And so sometimes a plaintiff will dismiss it without prejudice, which means they can bring it again.

Mandy wanted with prejudice, which means once that's filed and signed off by the judge. She could never ever be brought in for anything having to do with this case by the plaintiff. And that's why it was important to you. And it took surprisingly a long time for you to get this order, Mandy. I don't understand that. Yeah, it did. And it was just such a stupid lawsuit. It was such a stupid. And I have a hard time talking about this because I just really want this part of my life to be over because I remember the moment I found out I was being sued in 2022 and I didn't get out of bed that day.

It was like solid just depression. Did this cost you money out of your pocket for attorney's fees, Mandy? I don't want you to tell me how much. No, no, no. I'll tell you. On top of the mental toll, it was just one more thing. I was at a period of my life where I was like, what, this, I have so much anxiety. I have so much stress because of my job that I have right now. And it's just in the throes of Murdoch reporting,

there was so much going on. And all of the sudden, on top of everything, I have this lawsuit thrown at me that has absolutely nothing to do with all the stuff that I'm reporting on, it's something from years ago. And it just triggered me in a lot of ways and made me spiral because I felt like things were out of control. I felt like if I was getting sued for that,

what else could I get sued for? I was just starting to spiral. And that was awful. What also was awful is my former employer did not have insurance. And I did not trust him at the time to cover me whatsoever. It was a bad period of time and- How does a newspaper not have defamation coverage? I don't know the answer to that. You tell me, stupidity and arrogance is my answer to that. And always being able, being a good old boy who's always able to get out of things

that they get into without having to pay. And I found all that you know I learned the hard way but it it cost us a total of thirty three thousand dollars to get out of this lawsuit. That's crazy. Thirty three thousand dollars. That was my salary and journalism for, I don't know, five years. So $33,000 is still I'm doing a lot better, but a lot of money to me. And it is something that crushes my soul because I think about this all the time. It was an easy, it was, I'm sorry, my lawyer was good, but it was an easy argument. Like I didn't do anything wrong. None of these other papers did anything wrong.

Why did it take this long? Why was this so hard to fight? And also this was extra stressful for me for a long time because I had made a lot of people in the South Carolina justice system very, very unhappy. I made enemies in the justice system in the last few years through my reporting. So at night, what did I think about? This is all going to come back to me, Mandy. You're going to get a judge who hates you and this is all going to come back.

So thankfully I had David talk me through everything and say, we're gonna get a lawyer, we're gonna, we're gonna fight this, we're not gonna let any of this happen. And I'm glad that we did all of that. I'm glad that we learned, but I am very, very angry about how long it took, how many months I had to pay an attorney to send a couple emails and I would get an $800 bill, a $2,000 bill just to get out of this stupid lawsuit. And again, money is a lot to me. I don't come from a place where I could send an email and bill somebody $800. That is not a world that I am used to or familiar with. And the entire thing made

me extremely, extremely uneasy, upset, and angry. I feel like I lost $33,000 to something that was really stupid. And guess what? USC isn't the University of South Carolina, the ones that enabled this guy for years and years and years, the ones that did not put their foot down, did not fire him, allowed this to happen. They are also responsible for that. They helped make this man, they helped make this issue a thing. I'm angry at them too. I'm angry at the entire, and I'm glad that we had a judge that understood and was able to see it for what it was and dismiss it, who happens to be Judge Newman's daughter. And she's a wonderful judge, a wonderful person, and I am thankful for the Newman family every

single day because if the two Newmans weren't in our justice system, I think my life would look a lot different. And that's not to say that they played favors for me, but at all, she was just able to see it for what it was and was able to dismiss it. Many states, I think as of today, I think it's 34 states and the District of Columbia, have legislation called an anti-SLAPP law. And SLAPP is an acronym that stands for

strategic lawsuits against public participation. and SLAP is an acronym that stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. The point of anti-SLAP laws is to have a tool available to quickly and as inexpensively as possible dismiss meritless defamation cases. So the idea is that strategic lawsuits against public participation, the SLAP of the anti-slap, those are lawsuits that plaintiffs with money and resources file against typically reporters or amateur reporters, maybe because that's a different emerging body of law, people who

have YouTube channels or TikTok accounts or whatever. So these people with money and resources will file lawsuits against people speaking on a particular issue in an attempt to chill their speech. So they'll say, oh, you made this, you made a TikTok about me that was unflattering. So I'm going to sue you. And And you know, the American rule, as we call it, with attorney's fees is that each party bears their own attorney's fees with very limited exceptions. So it used to be the case that if you got sued for defamation, you have to defend it. If you don't defend it, you'll get a default judgment under against you for who knows how much money. Even if you choose not to pay

that money, then that judgment becomes a lien against any property that you own. So if you buy a house or if you already have a house and you want to sell that house, well, you've got to lean on it. So it can be a real problem. You can't ignore it, make it go away. So then you've got to pay an attorney to defend it. So what anti-SLAP lawsuits are intended to do is to give defendants who are speaking on matters of public interest a mechanism to quickly dispose of the case without having to go through discovery. So some typical features of

these statutes is that they have an early dismissal mechanism. So you can file a motion to dismiss right away. They stay discovery. So most of the time in a civil lawsuit, when you file a lawsuit and the other side answers, you're immediately entitled to start serving requests for discovery. And those can be written answers to written questions or documents that you have to produce

in response to requests for production of documents. Discovery is very invasive. I mean, the range of material that a litigant is required to produce in discovery is broader than what would be admissible at trial because you're entitled to investigate your claim and it might be that there's some little piece over here in a discovery response

that even though it wouldn't be admissible, it can help lead you to admissible evidence. So it's invasive, it's also expensive because you have to pay a lawyer or spend your own time. If you're an individual, corporations can't defend, can't represent themselves in court. But if you're an individual, corporations can't represent themselves in court. But if you're an individual, you could represent yourself ill-advised, but you could try to. And then you have to sit there and go through all of your stuff.

You have to produce documents. You have to sit for a deposition. Very expensive, invasive, and emotionally draining. So these allow the early dismissal mechanism with a stay of discovery. And then they also shift attorney's fees. So if you're the defendant, so if I were a journalist and I reported on something, somebody rich didn't like it, sued me, I would file an anti-slap motion to dismiss. And my motion to dismiss is granted and the lawsuit goes away, I should be entitled to

my attorney's fees under most of those statutes. So then I come out of it in one piece. I haven't, other than the emotional toll that litigation takes, I probably haven't spent my own money, hopefully. So most states at this point have an anti-SLAPP statute of some sort. South Carolina does not, North Carolina does not, but 34 states do, plus DC. They do vary in protection though.

So some of them are very limited. For example, I want to say Massachusetts is limited to government speech. Others are broader. They all kind of have different features of, you know, whether they say discovery, what the attorney fee shifting looks like. So they're not all the same, but they have sort of the same overall feature of discouraging those types of lawsuits and allowing an early mechanism to get rid of them. In COJ 38, Mandy discussed how she felt after she finally received the dismissal from the defamation suit she was unfortunately involved with.

Here's Mandy and Eric from that episode. Yes, the day before the Taylor Swift concert, I finally got the paper that I've been waiting for a very, very long time to come through and say that it's official, you're dismissed from this lawsuit. And yeah, it was just Dismissed with prejudice, meaning they can never bring it again. Yeah. Now you do have the right, Mandy, to bring a motion under the frivolous Civil Proceeding Sanctions Act for being wrongfully sued, or you can bring a suit for what's known as abusive process or malicious prosecution. That is if somebody brings a lawsuit against you

and they don't have grounds, they don't have, that's no merit, it doesn't pass what's known as the Rule 11 test. So there's three different things that you wanna do now. Obviously, you don't wanna kick up a hornet's nest, but you are in the clear now and you should talk with your lawyer about at least making a motion to get some of your costs back because you were dismissed at a very, very early stage

in the proceedings on a motion to dismiss stage, which that is almost unheard of because all somebody has to do is meet the pleading requirements of a complaint. And a judge cannot pass decision on the merits of that complaint as long as the elements are pled. And you're basically stuck in a lawsuit through discovery until somebody can make a motion for summary judging. But you got out early on because Judge Newman viewed those claims against you as not even being grounded in fact and not even being grounded in law. It's an in-your-face slam the door shut against the people that brought this lawsuit against you. And I think you have a basis to make a motion in the case for your costs and expenses because you spent a lot of money. And then if you decide you

wanted to do an abusive process or malicious prosecution, you could get your emotional distress damages for having to live with this claim over your head, questioning your professionalism and what it did to you at a time when you were, especially getting married and enjoying your life. And as a young person, you have this suit over your head

and it's unnerving. I mean, talk about what it's like to be sued. You're not a lawyer. I deal with the suing business all the time. Talk about what it's like just to be sued. Well, it's terrifying. And it's also terrifying when I have a very loud mouth against the justice system in South Carolina. And a lot of the people who are still a part of this

system could have been a part of those decisions and keeping me in the lawsuit. Does that make sense? Like, I just always felt like everything that I was doing could come crashing with a lawsuit and a bad judge that had it out for me. And I knew that it was a frivolous lawsuit. But again, I also know this is not a perfect system and you never know what could happen. And you kind of have to expect the worst. And that was just terrifying. And I also just really hope that my motion,

I hope that my dismissal leads to all of the other journalists who've been sued, they need to be dismissed, the victim in the case needs to be dismissed. And then I am gonna, I plan on taking those next steps of really seeking accountability in this, because after going through all of this, it's just wrong for people to abuse the system in this way. And it's like we talked about as slap lawsuits, they should not be happening. And this is a perfect example of someone just revictimizing people over and over again, and using our system to do that. And that's not right. So now that I'm out of it and that stress is alleviated, I plan on fighting the good fight and... We should not have a system where people could

just frivolously sue others and take a shot at somebody in hopes that they're just going to pay me some money so that I can get out of the lawsuit without any repercussions. And good for Judge Newman, because there are many judges, Mandy, that won't make that early call on a frivolous lawsuit. They'll let you stay in it through a lot of discovery. And you got to spend money on depositions and court hearings. And maybe it's two years down the road where you get out of it. So good for Judge Newman. Right. And I again, I hope that this puts an end to and not only was the financial part of it very stressful, but the whole my reputation being on the line and my having all these comments from people related to this lawsuit, trolls related to this lawsuit that they used it as ammo to attack me as

Mandy's being sued for defamation. So don't believe anything that she says and I want to I want to fight back against all of that. So what should you do if you think you are being defamed or even if you think that you might get sued for defamation, but you know what you're doing is not defamatory, keep receipts of everything. Text messages, any electronic correspondence, letters, everything, you're gonna need it. The first thing that you would wanna do is find somebody, preferably an attorney, like very preferably an attorney,

but find somebody else other than you to take a look at the statement that somebody is alleging to be defamatory and get yourself a gut check. So hopefully you have an attorney in your orbit who you can talk to and they can either take a look at it for you or refer you to somebody who can at low or no cost. If you were accused of saying something defamatory in connection with your job, maybe your organization has an attorney in-house who could help you out, but surface the problem to somebody else and have them give you an objective look at what you said. Now while you're doing that, I'm not going to advise every single person

who gets accused of defamation to immediately take down the post or delete the website or whatever. Most cases that probably would be a good idea, but it might not. If you publish something that you believe in your heart and you have receipts to show is not defamatory and it is something that for whatever reason is very important to you, that it is said and be visible, you might just leave it up while you're evaluating.

Because if you take it down and put it back up again later and a court finds that it was defamatory, then you've actually published it twice. But that's something that the person who you're seeking a gut check from can also give you some advice on. I would, however, refrain from making it worse. So if you have a post out there that somebody is saying is defamatory, maybe don't share it a whole bunch on all of your different socials. Maybe don't post it again until you really get a handle on what it is that you're dealing with. So sort of pause and assess and get a trusted advisor to give you some gut check advice

on it. The next thing you're going to want to do is gather and save all of your receipts. So if you said something and you believe that it is true and you're basing that belief on some evidence or some facts or something that you found online, pull all of that stuff together in one place and make sure that you keep it. If someone is threatening to sue you, you have an affirmative obligation not to delete

any information that would be relevant to that lawsuit. Because if you delete that information, and the other side asks for it, and you have to say, I deleted it, what happens is that the other side then could ask the judge for what's called an adverse inference. So they would say, all right, we sued Becky and Becky immediately deleted all of her emails. So you should assume that everything that was in her emails would hurt her if she hadn't deleted it. It's kind of a fair assumption, right? Like if I'm deleting a whole bunch of emails, what was in them? So don't, don't delete things, hold on to them. If you have text messages that are relevant,

you might wanna do something to try to preserve those text messages, whether it's uploading them to iCloud or screenshotting them, because you don't wanna get hit with a spoliation issue and hopefully whatever you have is going to prove that you're not liable. I would definitely recommend having an attorney on your side,

even if it takes you a little while to find one. There are resources that are available if you can't afford an attorney. Legal aid in your county or your judicial district would probably be able to point you to a good resource. Many local bars have an attorney referral service where even though they're not pro bono, we call it low bono. So it's not free, but inexpensive. And the attorney referral service at the county bar would have a list of people who can talk to you. There's also nonprofit groups for reporters that you can, you know, find via Google. There's local and national ones that might have resources

available. Or if you happen to live in an area that has a law school, reach out to the law school and see if they have any 3L law students who are in a clinic of some of some kind and they may be able to help. And especially if you're somebody who is speaking out on a topic of public interest or if you're a journalist or a content creator, many law schools have kind of affinity groups for law students who want to work in media. And so they may have resources available as well. And then the final piece of advice I'll give is if you actually do get sued or if it's abundantly clear that you're about to get sued any minute now, look at your insurance coverage and put

your carrier on notice. If you work for a company and you've been sued or are about to be sued in connection with your job, your employer may have insurance or if you own a company, you may have insurance coverage for that company. But even if you're an individual, it's possible that you might have an umbrella policy or something that might help you with legal expenses. So just take a look at it. Because if you wait, if you don't tell your insurance carrier right away

about a potential claim, then they may decline coverage later. And any area that you can look to, to tap resources to help you afford an attorney, you wanna make sure you're maximizing. I really hope this has been helpful. And remember that the Lunashark team is always just a message away if you need a little guidance on your fact-finding journeys.

We are so proud of Sam for taking initiative on these deep dive episodes. If you agree, please send Sam some encouragement on Discord or social media. I can tell y'all personally, the early on support and praise when you start out podcasting is so meaningful. If you enjoyed this episode and would like more content like this, or would like to listen to the first episode in our defamation series,

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