Charney v. Standard General, 3/28/17 CA2/5
Charney is the type of litigant who wears as “kick me” sign on his back – but he put there himself. The facts — He was CEO of American Apparel; the company conducted an investigation and terminated him based on that investigation. Standard (an affiliate of American Apparel) issued a press-release as part of the termination. It was pretty innocuous as far as press releases go – It said an investigation was conducted by a third party, the investigation was thorough, and that Standard supported the Board’s decision to terminate Charney based on that investigation. Charney cried foul and sued Standard for, among other things, defamation. Standard filed an anti-SLAPP motion (of course) and won (of course). Apparently this didn’t compute, so Charney appealed the trial court’s decision. Held: Affirmed.
The two-step anti-SLAPP analysis is well known: Code of Civ. Proc. section 425.16 provides, a “cause of action against a person arising from any act of that person in furtherance of the person’s right of petition or free speech under the United States Constitution or the California Constitution in connection with a public issue shall be subject to a special motion to strike, unless the court determines that the plaintiff has established that there is a probability that the plaintiff will prevail on the claim.”
Chaney conceded that Standard met prong one – In other words, his lawsuit was directed at Standard’s protected activity.
Charney argued that he could satisfy prong 2 and show that his lawsuit had minimal merit. In considering his argument, think of turning a car key where the engine turns over but won’t start. To state a defamation claim, the plaintiff must present evidence of a statement of fact that is provably false. First, Charney claimed that an independent third party didn’t do the investigation. Whether the statement was false or not didn’t help him; the statement was made about a third person, not about him. Charney also argued that the press release falsely characterized the investigation as impartial. But “impartial” is a matter of opinion and subjective judgment, and therefore was not fact that would support a defamation action. Finally, Charney inaccurately claimed that the press release said he was terminated for cause. The release said no such thing and didn’t provide the underlying factual findings of any allegations against him.
It must be nice to be able to afford pointless litigation – but what a waste of the court’s time.
Developments for the California Litigator