Joy Reid Must Defend Against Defamation Claims, Second Cir. Says

California’s anti-SLAPP statute isn’t applicable in federal court because its use increases a plaintiff’s burden to overcome pretrial dismissal beyond what the federal rules of civil procedure require, the Second Circuit said Wednesday as a matter of first impression.

The decision revives defamation claims against MSNBC news anchor Joy Reid arising out of the debate over California’s 2017 sanctuary state law.

A critic of the law, Roslyn La Liberte, was photographed at a 2018 city council meeting in Simi Valley, Calif., speaking with a young Hispanic man, and the photograph went viral because it appeared that she was shouting angrily ...