Janice Dickenson, a well-known celebrity and model, filed an action against Bill Cosby, also well-known TV personality and comedian, for defamation, false light, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. After going public with accusations of rape against Cosby, Dickenson received a demand letter and discovered a press release, both issued by Cosby’s attorney Martin Singer. In turn, Dickenson filed a first amended complaint, adding Singer as a defendant. Cosby and Singer then moved to strike the first amended complaint pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute, which was granted as to the demand letter and denied as to the press release. The Court of Appeals ultimately determined that the anti-SLAPP was incorrectly granted as to the letter and correctly granted as to the press release, which several legal commentators have previously written about.
However, there is an interesting aspect of the Court’s decision which has not gotten a lot of attention. In Dickenson, the Defendant argued that Plaintiff’s false light and IIED causes of action should be dismissed because they were derivative of the defamation claim and therefore were mere “surplusage.” In other words, Defendant argued, those additional claims did not add anything above and beyond the defamation claim. This argument did not succeed. The Court of Appeal held that an anti-SLAPP motion is not the proper vehicle for this type of argument, and instead found that this was better suited in the context of a demurrer. This seems analysis seems flawed because an anti-SLAPP motion requires a plaintiff to state and substantiate a claim, just like a demurrer does. Further, the purpose of the anti-SLAPP statute is to winnow meritless claims. If a claim is purely derivative, it would seem that eliminating derivative claims would be a good thing. Unfortunately, the Dickenson court did not explain its reasoning, so we’ll just have to see how future courts deal with this argument.
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