John Oliver on SLAPP suits

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight did a long piece on SLAPP suits, including his experience as the target of one by coal baron Bob Murrary in state court in West Virginia (a state that lacks a SLAPP suit). And Devin Nunes sued Twitter in Virginia (which refused to dismiss) because its SLAPP statute is weaker than the one in California (the natural forum for that suit). The video is embedded after the jump.

The piece is funny, although too simplistic in a blanket call for statutes with a call for coordination. A federal statute cannot define the pleading standard in state court, although it perhaps could require attorney's fees.* So a federal statute would not have jelped State statutes cannot define the pleading standard in federal court (the subject of a circuit split, where the "does not apply" position seems to be winning) but can require attorney's fees in federal court.

[*] This would be an interesting § 5 question. Are procedural protections such as a pleading standard and fee-shifting congruent-and-proportional to protecting the First Amendment rights of the targets of these suits?

Also, the show missed a great irony. It discussed a $ 5 billion SLAPP suit that Trump brought against journalist Bob O'Brien, admittedly for the point of hurting O'Brien. But the story did not mention that Trump prevailed in the Stormy Daniels lawsuit--a suit designed to criticize the President of the United States--under California's SLAPP law and recovered six-figures in attorney's fees.