A unanimous decision by the NV Supreme Court… 7-0… in favor of Facebook page.

NDoW Watch: Keeping them transparent Facebook Page
March 11 at 6:04 AM
A unanimous decision by the NV Supreme Court… 7-0… in favor of THIS FB PAGE..

SEVEN TO ZERO, UNANIMOUS…

In short, all seven Supreme Court Justices concluded that “comments made about the handling of bears by NDoW or Lackey directly relate to the stated public interest of the treatment of bears in Nevada.”

Three years ago this month, Carl Lackey, an NDoW spokesperson and proclaimed ‘bear biologist’, filed suit against the admin of this page…he alleged claims of:
• Defamation
• Intentional infliction of Emotional Distress
• Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
• Conspiracy.

At heart of the manner were four third party comments made in response to posts that were critical of Lackey:
• “… if we can establish he benefits financially from selling bear parts… he should go to jail.”
• “… moving mother bears without cubs… animal cruelty is a felony on all 50 states…him and his NDoW murderers need to go to jail..”
• ”It’s time for the engineered bear hunt.”
• “Lackey is such an incompetent asshole. Fire his ass.”

The admin of this page (Stark) filed an anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) motion to dismiss… In other words, it’s a meritless lawsuit intended to chill free speech.
In short, Lackey’s lawsuit against Stark and this page, along with NDoW’s tacit approval, was to bully and intimidate Stark into silence, to shut down this page and to collect money.

The lower court denied the anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss.
Stark appealed to the NV Supreme Court.

In a 7-0 unanimous decision two weeks ago, all seven justices at the NV Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s decision that denied Stark’s motion to dismiss…

Again, they all concluded that 3rd party comments made about the handling of bears by NDoW or Lackey directly relate to the stated public interest of the treatment of bears in Nevada.

It should be noted there are two prongs to the anti-SLAPP. The lower court never addressed prong 2.
Because of this, the NV Supreme Court has nothing to base a ruling on for prong 2. Therefore, they turned prong 2 back to the lower court to complete the ruling with guidelines to follow the Communications Decency Act which immunizes this page from third party comments. We feel the 7-0 ruling on prong 1 that Stark is not liable for 3rd party comments is a positive direction for the closure of prong 2.

NOTE: here is the link to the ruling. We hope you take the time to read it.