Their bill is a mirror image of a Senate Bill 237, which already passed with broad support among Republicans and Democrats both inside and out of the legislature.
Stewart, an attorney, told this news outlet that SLAPP suits, particularly when it comes to defamation, have long been too common in Ohio. He explained that while defamation cases are generally hard to win thanks to the First Amendment’s broad protections on speech, they’re certainly not very difficult to bring forward.
According to Stewart, current law doesn’t allow courts to do “that good a job at weeding out frivolous, baseless cases before they’ve sucked up a lot of time and money” for the defendants.
“Our legal system is, by default, extremely open and it doesn’t really do that good of a job at weeding out frivolous, baseless cases before they’ve sucked up a lot of time and money for the people who are the targets,” Stewart said.
Stewart noted that legal victory isn’t usually the end goal for SLAPP suits, which he said costs an average of $39,000 to defend.
“For the people bringing these lawsuits, the pain is the point,” he said.
The bill seeks to fix this by creating what is essentially a motion to dismiss the case due to frivolity. And, if the motion succeeds, H.B. 637 would force the plaintiff to pay the defendant’s court fees.
Stewart explained that, currently, motions to dismiss are much more about procedure than content. He noted that defendants aren’t able to enter any extrinsic evidence during a motion to dismiss their case, even if they know it to be baseless.
But under H.B. 637, a defendant would be able to bring a motion to dismiss the case and provide evidence to the judge that proves that the lawsuit is baseless. If the judge agrees that the complaint is baseless, the case would be thrown out. If the judge allows the case to continue, everything would continue as per usual.
Stewart explained that the motion to dismiss would also essentially freeze the case until the judge made a decision. That means there would be no discovery and no depositions — two items that make legal representation a pricey proposition.
Rep. Forhan, an attorney from northeast Ohio, told this news outlet that he hopes the anti-SLAPP H.B. 637 would limit “forum shopping” on First Amendment cases here in Ohio, which is when lawyers search the country for states with favorable laws for their plaintiffs.
“What we’re trying to do in Ohio is remove Ohio from that category,” Forhan said. “(Let’s) put Ohio in the other category where we have strong anti-SLAPP laws so when these bad actors, when they go looking across all the jurisdictions, Ohio is not a place where they can come and do their SLAPPs.”
Both Forhan and Stewart told this news organization that they’re unsure if the House will take up their bill or simply take up the Senate bill that passed unanimously earlier in June — both simply want to make sure this gets done.
However, lawmakers are on summer recess and are not scheduled to come back to Columbus until after the November election, which puts the legislation in a race against time, needing to be approved by the House before this general assembly concludes at the end of the year.
Stewart said he was unwilling to make a prediction on whether the bill would be prioritized during lame duck session. “It’s a bill that should move,” he concluded.
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Avery Kreemer can be reached at 614-981-1422, on X, via email, or you can drop him a comment/tip with the survey below.
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