Techdirt. Stories filed under "precedents" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "precedents"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Fri, 9 Nov 2012 00:17:52 PST Gawker's Anti-SLAPP Victory Could Be Good For The Web - But Judge Refuses To Publish The Ruling Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121107/18243720969/gawkers-anti-slapp-victory-could-be-good-web-judge-refuses-to-publish-ruling.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121107/18243720969/gawkers-anti-slapp-victory-could-be-good-web-judge-refuses-to-publish-ruling.shtml good ruling by a California court to knock out a bogus defamation claim against blog site Gawker. There were a few interesting elements to the ruling, including that it used California's anti-SLAPP law, and that it was willing to look at the context of the use of certain words like "scam." But, most importantly, it noted the fact that the Gawker piece included numerous links/citations to sources, which meant that anyone could dig deeper to understand the details themselves.

The problem with the ruling is that, as good as it was, the court decided to issue it as an "unpublished" ruling, meaning that it has limited use as a precedent elsewhere. Goldman then sought to have the court revisit that decision and, instead, to fully publish the decision. Unfortunately, in a one line ruling, the court has now rejected that request (pdf):
The request for an order directing publication of the opinion in the above-entitled appeal is denied.
That's it. End of story. No explanation. No publication. That's really kind of ridiculous. What is the court afraid of? It made the ruling. Why not stand behind it, and make it easier for similar bogus cases to be quickly shot down by the courts?

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