James Woods Not Allowed To Find Out Name Of Guy Who Called Him A Cocaine Addict On Twitter
Over the summer, we wrote about a positively ridiculous lawsuit filed by the actor James Woods, who apparently took offense to an obviously hyperbolic tweet, calling him a "cocaine addict." Woods felt that such a joke tweet deserved a $10 million lawsuit. The anonymous Twitter user hooked up with Ken "Popehat" White as his lawyer and made an anti-SLAPP claim against Woods for his lawsuit that seemed obviously designed to silence criticism on Twitter. Amusingly, one of the things that White's response pointed out was that Woods himself had referred to others on Twitter in a similar way: 
One of the most important parts of California's very good anti-SLAPP law (which is a way to fight back against lawsuits that are clearly just designed to shut someone up), is that it blocks all "discovery" efforts in the case until the anti-SLAPP efforts are decided. This is especially important, because it's often the discovery process that destroys peoples' lives -- costing them tons of time and money in responding to requests. In this case, Woods and his lawyer still sought to use the discovery process to find out the identity of the Twitter user who went by the user name "Abe List."
However, as Eriq Gardner at the Hollywood Reporter notes, the court has rejected this attempt, noting that it's way, way too early to get into that with an anti-SLAPP claim still in place:
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One of the most important parts of California's very good anti-SLAPP law (which is a way to fight back against lawsuits that are clearly just designed to shut someone up), is that it blocks all "discovery" efforts in the case until the anti-SLAPP efforts are decided. This is especially important, because it's often the discovery process that destroys peoples' lives -- costing them tons of time and money in responding to requests. In this case, Woods and his lawyer still sought to use the discovery process to find out the identity of the Twitter user who went by the user name "Abe List." However, as Eriq Gardner at the Hollywood Reporter notes, the court has rejected this attempt, noting that it's way, way too early to get into that with an anti-SLAPP claim still in place:
L.A. Superior Court judge Mel Recana concludes that the defendant's mental state when making the tweet isn't material just yet in the case. In an order this week, the judge writes, "Defendant argues that if the court finds that the statement is a 'mere rhetorical insult,' then malice is irrelevant and defendant prevails. The court agrees that plaintiff is not entitled to discovery into malice at this stage. The anti-SLAPP motion is limited to whether the statement was a provable fact or a 'figurative rhetorical insult.' "This is not surprising, but it's good to see that the court is following the proper procedures here and not letting Woods try to get around the anti-SLAPP process in order to identify the tweeter.
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