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Storey County Commissioner Lance Gilman’s defamation case against Storey Teller editor Sam Toll has been dismissed by a district judge, who granted Toll’s anti-SLAPP motion, allowed him to be reimbursed for attorney fees and could grant $10,000 in damages from Gilman.
Toll wrote that he expects an appeal from Gilman, who also owns the Mustang Ranch brothel and developed the massive Tahoe Reno Industrial Center.
“Mr. Gilman is on the record saying he will appeal if he loses, so I know we’re not done,” Toll wrote on the Storey Teller.
The case has been ongoing more than two years, and Toll has won significant rulings at several points, including a determination that his online publication qualifies as a newspaper under Nevada’s shield law. The Nevada Supreme Court earlier had reasoned that the law — which protects journalists from being forced to expose their sources and is recognized as one of the nation’s strongest — could be applied to digital newsgatherers like The Storey Teller.
District Judge James Wilson’s ruling on June 15 also carries some welcome support for the state’s anti-SLAPP statute, which stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. The statute allows a judge to dismiss a lawsuit, such as Wilson did in this case, when determining it was aimed at silencing critics on public matters.
“There is no credible evidence that Toll published the resident communications with actual malice. The Court concludes Gilman has failed to show that his defamation claim against Toll has minimal merit. There is no credible evidence that Toll’s communications were not in good faith and in furtherance of the right to petition or the right to free speech in direct connection with an issue of public concern, and therefore it must be dismissed,” Wilson wrote.
Also welcome is Wilson’s order that Toll may apply both for reimbursement of fees and for $10,000 in statutory damages, as allowed by Nevada law on frivolous lawsuits.