Comment by jrflowers | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jrflowers | Hacker News Reader

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> You're saying that the lawsuit is meritorious, while conceding that there is no legal basis for the lawsuit? Am I missing something?

No. Twitter is suing under the “who cares”, “shut up” and “no u” doctrine, which you can do in courts that do not have anti-SLAPP rules in place.

>The company filed its lawsuit in Texas, which is neither its nor Media Matters’ primary place of business. As legal blogger Ken White noted, a Texas filing protects X from claims that it filed a strategic lawsuit against public participation (or SLAPP), something it might face in its home base of California.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23970274/x-elon-musk-med...

> which you can do in courts that do not have anti-SLAPP rules in place.

No, this is incorrect. I believe you're unintentionally conflating two things. Not having an anti-SLAPP law just means that Media Matters won't have the luxury of quickly striking the complaint before having to respond to it.

It does not mean that vexatious litigants are free to file a lawsuit without making actual legal claims recognized by the courts.

Media Matters can (and will) still file a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the complaint, and will almost certainly prevail based on the clear deficiency of the complaint which doesn't even bother to cite the legal elements of the three claims it lists.

I like that you say that they cannot file a suit without making actual legal claims in the sentence before you say that the lawsuit that was filed didn’t even bother to cite the legal elements of the claims.

When I say that they can't file a suit without making actual legal claims, I obviously meant that the suit would be dismissed. Anyone can go down to the court clerk's office and pay the fee to submit a court filing. There is no mechanism to review whether a filing is frivolous before it gets filed with the clerk.

So yes, my statement was correct, you just aren't familiar with how it works.

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