Mikhail Fridman, et al. v. Orbis Business Intelligence Limited, et al.

When the District of Columbia Anti-SLAPP Act is applied to a lawsuit, the plaintiff is required to produce legally sufficient evidence for his claim, prior to the conduct of any discovery. In a defamation lawsuit, does the application of the Act to dismiss the claim of a public figure plaintiff—not afforded any discovery into the mental state of the defendant—violate the Due Process Clause and the principles laid down by the Court in Herbert v. Lando, when the dismissal is based on the plaintiff’s failure to produce evidence of the defendant’s subjective mental state of “actual malice”?

Whether, in the absence of any guidance from this Court on the scope of a “particular public controversy” giving rise to the defamation, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals’ application of Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. was erroneously and unconstitutionally overbroad?