There is plenty of precedence for this in the United States and elsewhere. There are even laws against it in a number of states and countries but it is very difficult to write legislation for and enforce.

This category of abuse of our legal system is called "Strategic lawsuit against public participation" or SLAPP.

More information can be found on the Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...

I'm surprised this wasn't mentioned in the article. I am not a lawyer, but it would seem that these types of suits would fall squarely in the SLAPP definition.