From Doe v. Ledor, decided today by the California Court of Appeal, in an opinion by Justice Tracie Brown, joined by Justice Jon Streeter and Judge Joni Hiramoto:
Plaintiff filed a lawsuit alleging that his ex-girlfriend and her friends, including defendant and appellant Gina Ledor, embarked upon a "vengeful smear campaign" to harass and defame him after his senior year of high school.
Pertinent to this appeal, in the summer of 2020, Gina Ledor sent emails to school officials at Dartmouth College, stating essentially that plaintiff had committed voter fraud to win an election for student body president at Berkeley High School (BHS) and providing links to what she represented to be articles and a podcast about the incident. She wrote that she was sharing the information so that Dartmouth would be "truly aware of whom you have admitted," and the BHS election incident was only one of many instances where plaintiff had shown a lack of empathy and character, but it "just happened to be the most well-documented."
Sometime after receiving these emails, Dartmouth revoked plaintiff's offer of admission….
Plaintiff asserted claims against Gina for defamation, false light, invasion of privacy, civil harassment, civil stalking, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and he asserted a claim for vicarious liability against Gina's parents.
The Ledors moved to have the case dismissed at the outset, using California's "anti-SLAPP" statute, which provides for prompt dismissal (and other remedies, such as a requirement that plaintiff pay defendants' attorney fees) for legally meritless cases. The statute is limited, in relevant part, to cases brought based on defendants' speech that "contribute[d] to or further[ed] the public conversation on an issue of public interest," and the court concluded that Gina's speech didn't qualify:
