With recent cases involving former President Donald Trump and Fox News garnering international attention, issues surrounding defamation law have been fixtures in the daily news cycle. An inescapable part of such cases are anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) statutes that have been passed across the country. New York federal courts, like federal courts around the nation, have had to grapple with the procedural applicability of anti-SLAPP statutes promulgated under state law.

The application of New York’s anti-SLAPP statute in the federal courts has been particularly salient since the 2020 amendments to Civil Rights Law §§70-a and 76-a and Rules 3211 and 3212 of the CPLR, which broadened the law to provide additional procedural rights to SLAPP defendants.