Cape Cod blogger sued for libel
From the Citizen Media Law Project blog:
Peter Robbins, author of the Robbins Report, a blog that appears on the popular community website Cape Cod Today, and an anonymous commenter have been sued over statements they made criticizing a group of Barnstable, MA residents who opposed the dredging of Barnstable Harbor. The case raises a host of interesting questions, including whether the statements at issue are protected opinions and the potential applicability of Massachusetts' anti-SLAPP and retraction statutes.
The dispute arose over a March 11 post by Robbins entitled Barnstable Harbor: Filling in and falling in, in which he criticized a number of individuals, including Joseph Dugas and his lawyer Paul Revere III, who had challenged orders issued by the Town of Barnstable Conservation Commission and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection that authorized dredging in Barnstable Harbor (not surprising for a community that is so intimately tied to the water, dredging in the harbor is quite a controversial topic).