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It's been over a year since Devin Nunes kicked off his vexatious campaign to sue various critics. As you probably are aware, in that year he's sued news organizations, journalists, political operatives, critics, and, most famously, a satirical internet cow.Most (though not all) of those lawsuits have been filed in Virginia which has a notoriously weak anti-SLAPP law. He's also filed a lawsuit in Iowa, which has no anti-SLAPP law. He briefly filed one case in California -- which does have an anti-SLAPP law -- but (1) he had his campaign file it rather than himself personally, and then (2) quickly dropped it.The barrage of frivolous, censorial SLAPP suits in Virginia, though, inspired lawmakers there to pass a good anti-SLAPP law, though the two legislative houses were unable to come to an agreement on a consensus version of the law before their brief 2020 legislative session came to an end, though they promised to take it up again in 2021.What's interesting is that in a new article about what happened with the law in the Roanoke Times, it's explained that once the law does hopefully pass next year, it may apply back to Nunes' series of vexatious lawsuits -- meaning he might be on the hook for the legal bills of everyone he sued. Normally, laws cannot apply retroactively, but as the article notes, this wouldn't be about making something illegal retroactively, but rather about making a procedural change to how cases play out, meaning it could apply retroactively:Because the change in law would be procedural rather than substantive, Nunes’ defendants may be able to seek early dismissals and attorneys fees even though his lawsuits were filed before the law was enacted, Edwards said. Those fees could be substantial.
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Topic: Devin Nunes' Lawyer Facing Sanctions, While Nunes Himself May Have To Pay His Opponents' Legal Bills (Read 339 times)
