Parkmerced Investors Properties LLC v. ApartmentRatings.com [1]

Two real estate companies, Parkmerced Investors Properties LLC and Stellar Larkspur Partners LLC, sued eighteen unknown defendants for violation of the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. § 1125(a) [2]), libel, and tortious interference with contract.  The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, revolves around anonymous and pseudonymous postings to Apartment Ratings [3], a forum site that invites discussion about residential apartment buildings in locations throughout the United States.  In October 2008, Parkmerced and Stellar Larkspur  subpoenaed Apartment Ratings, asking for information identifying the authors of the critical comments made about them. 

Apartment Ratings notified the site users whose identities had been inquired about, and one of those users contacted Paul Levy of Public Citizen, who filed a brief [4] asking the court for a protective order against the subpoena and moving to strike the plaintiffs' state-law claims under the California anti-SLAPP statute (Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 425.16 [5]). 

Mr. Levy argued that the website's anonymous posters have a qualified right to engage in anonymous speech, and that the plaintiffs' facially invalid Lanham Act claim cannot justify disclosing the posters' identities.  (Without the Lanham Act claim, the federal court has no subject-matter jurisdiction over the case, so the potential merit of the libel and tortious interference claims should not matter.)  Based on the same weakness, Mr. Levy argued that the plaintiffs could not establish the probability of success required to survive his client's anti-SLAPP motion to strike. 

See our related database entry, Parkmerced Investors Properties LLC v. Does [6].