Ocean Towers Housing v. Stone [1]

Ocean Towers Housing Corp., the owner of an apartment building in Santa Monica, California filed a defamation lawsuit against one of its tenants Richard Stone, who accused the company of breaching its fiduciary duty to its shareholders.  According to filings in the case, in a posting on his website The Ocean View [2], Stone accused Ocean Towers of using company funds to finance a loan for a board member's nephew.  Stone claimed that the company did this despite statements that it lacked sufficient funds to engage in "much needed building repairs."

On December 22, 2006, Stone filed a motion to dismiss the suit under California's anti-SLAPP statute.  As an alternative reason for dismissal, Stone argued that his statements were priviliged because they litigation or were protected communications between parties who share an "interest" in an issue of direct and immediate concern.

The Superior Court denied the motion, finding that the statement constituted defamation per se and that there was evidence suggesting Stone's statements were false.  Further, the court found that Stone may have had malice in publishing the disputed statement.  The court also found that the litigation privilege didn't apply because both Stone and his comments were unrelated to the other Ocean Towers lawsuit.

Stone appealed to California's Second Appellate District.  The appeals court affirmed [3] the ruling on essentially the same grounds.  The court also explicitly rejected the "interest" privilege, which Stone argued had not been addressed in the trial court.  The court recognized that Stone might have qualified for the privilege if he had made his statements in a letter to another interested party, but it determined that posting a statement on the Internet does not prove the required intent to reach a specific interested party.

The case is scheduled to go to trial in L.A. Superior Court on 03/30/2009.

Update:

05/15/2009 - According to the case summary [4] (search "BC359619"), the case was dismissed by the plaintiff without prejudice.  It appears that a settlement was reached.