Former District 35 Councilman Dave Rosenberg has been awarded $100,000.00 in sanctions after earlier prevailing against a defamation lawsuit filed by failed Tennessee House candidate and former District 35 challenger Michelle Foreman. A copy of the Court’s sanctions order—the largest sanction ever awarded under the four-year-old Tennessee Public Participation Act to date—is available here: https://horwitz.law/wp-content/uploads/Foreman-Sanctions-Order.pdf. During the litigation, Foreman wrote on Facebook that filing such lawsuits is “worth every penny”: https://horwitz.law/wp-content/uploads/Foreman-Post.pdf

“Councilman Rosenberg warned that the consequences of maintaining this abusive litigation would be severe, and he has now been fully vindicated,” said Horwitz Law, PLLC principal Daniel A. Horwitz, who represented Councilman Rosenberg alongside Horwitz Law, PLLC attorneys Lindsay Smith and Melissa K. Dix and attorneys Jamie Hollin and Sarah Martin. “This historic order should serve as a warning to other politicians who would abuse the litigation process to threaten critics: filing SLAPP-suits will be financially devastating.”

Rosenberg’s win follows a string of earlier TPPA victories against defamation and other speech-based tort lawsuits filed by politicians. In December 2022, for example, conservative commentator and Horwitz Law, PLLC client Candace Owens prevailed in a $20 million SLAPP-suit filed by failed congressional candidate Kim Klacik, who was ordered to pay Ms. Owens $115,000.00 in attorney’s fees (but no sanctions) for filing the unsuccessful suit. Before that, in an effort to circumvent an anti-SLAPP judgment, a Goodlettsville Congressional Candidate withdrew a SLAPP-suit filed against three activists who criticized him mere days after Horwitz Law, PLLC’s attorneys appeared on their behalf. Yet another SLAPP-suit that has been filed by three Fayetteville Aldermen against two citizen-activists who petitioned them remains pending. A TPPA Petition to dismiss that lawsuit is set for a December 13, 2023 hearing.
Selected case documents from Rosenberg’s win are linked below.

Case Documents:

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Horwitz Law, PLLC has successfully defended clients against multiple multimillion-dollar libel, slander, false light, and other speech-based lawsuits in Tennessee’s state and federal courts. Clients represented by Horwitz Law have avoided tens of millions of dollars’ worth of threatened liability and frequently recovered some or all of their attorney’s fees against the people who baselessly sued them. If you are seeking speech defense, anti-SLAPP, or First Amendment representation, you can purchase a consultation from Horwitz Law here.