A Maine judge has recommended U.S. federal court reject a million-dollar lawsuit against the Massachusetts pro-family organization MassResistance by a Mr. Flanders, the homosexual activist who also tried – unsuccessfully – to take all of RoadKill Radio’s videos off the Internet.
Flanders’ vexatious lawsuit was based on an injunction issued by a Maine court, which later refused to renew or extend it. Flanders had also threatened lawsuits against lawyers and judges
On November 14, 2012, U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret J. Kravchuk found that “…the statements about which Flanders complains are not defamatory…”, adding that “under Maine defamation law, if a defendant is able to demonstrate the truth of that portion of the statement which alone makes it defamatory, he should be deemed to have supplied an adequate defense”; that “the potentially defamatory portion of the defendants’ statements is something that Flanders acknowledges is true, i.e., that Flanders was convicted of sexual abuse of a minor”; and that “the defendants did use the word[s] ‘fraudulent complaint’ to describe Flanders’s [initial request]… for protection from harassment and stated that it was ‘a complete abuse of the process and intent of harassment and restraining orders’ and made up of ‘absurd lies and dishonesties’.”
“However,” she wrote, “the defendants did not stop there; rather, they identified the facts on which these characterizations were based… Flanders does not contest any of these underlying factual statements”; and “The defendants’ characterization of the harassment complaint as fraudulent, abusive, and dishonest is based on disclosed non-defamatory facts… and it is therefore not actionable.”
The judge recommended “dismissal with prejudice” of Flanders’ complaint, on all grounds, and added, “I have no idea what ‘harassment’ claim Flanders seeks to assert in this court.”
[In general, “dismissal with prejudice” indicates misconduct on the party who filed the claim (in this case, Flanders) and forbids that party from refiling the case.]
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