Case Dismissed: Judge Throws Out Shiva Ayyadurai's Defamation Lawsuit V Techdirt

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19 points·Tomte··4 comments

Judge's ruling didn't go far enough. He should have allowed Techdirt to have Shiva cover their legal fees.

Agreed. That seems to be based on the case's diversity, though, not a judgement on the merits of the case. IANAL and have no idea if the diversity issue was "properly" decided, but it does, once again, point to the need for a federal SLAAP statute.

Given that a previous case was settled with the defendant paying him money he would be justified in thinking he have a real case, excluding any SLAAP statute from applying.

Just another way the Gawker vs Thiel feud is still sending negative shockwaves towards everyone else.

I dunno about 'justified'; the way this dude behaves and carefully shades his words makes me think he is cynical enough to understand why he got a free ride on Thiel's little butthurt-billionaire ragegasm.

I suspect Ayyadurai thought that he'd win this one via attrition - he has a (modest) war chest, an ambulance chaser unencumbered by morals coming off a win with the same play, and a blueprint for winning (carefully select small journalists who can't buy as much justice as you can; keep spending until they cry uncle.). He underestimated the resources Masnick could assemble.

His estimation of the expected payout (destroying Masnick's career) on the gamble may have not been insane, but calling it 'justified' seems a stretch.

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