Massachusetts Hospital Can’t Escape False Imprisonment Lawsuit

Massachusetts’ anti-SLAPP law doesn’t preclude a mental health-care patient from pursuing a lawsuit alleging that a hospital retained him against his will, in violation of the state’s patients rights law.

Morton Hospital didn’t show that it was entitled to dismissal based on a law that’s designed to put an early end to strategic lawsuits against public participation, the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts said.

SLAPP suits are those intended to chill petitioning or speech activity, rather than to redress a wrong, the court said. The law defines “petitioning” activity as a written or oral statement made to ...