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EDVA Judge Boots Nunes SLAPP Suits To Venues With Some Actual Connection To Cases

You can't forum shop your way onto the rocket docket, Congressman!

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(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne has had it with California Congressman Devin Nunes and his wacko libelslander lawyer Stephen Biss. Twice on the same day, Judge Payne told Nunes to take his nonsensical lawsuit against the media to a jurisdiction which bears some actual relation to the case and quit gumming up the works in Virginia’s Eastern District.

Nunes, who is on a mission to protect the First Amendment with a mountain of garbage suits against the “liberal media,” likes to file in Virginia state court, where the anti-SLAPP law is weak, or in the Eastern District of Virginia where the “rocket docket” is fast. It also happens to be the jurisdiction where Biss is barred. What a coincidence!

Nunes has sued both Twitter and his hometown paper the Sacramento Bee, via its parent company McClatchy, in Virginia, alleging that the ability to read the allegedly defamatory statements in Old Dominion is nexus enough. The argument over venue in the Twitter and McClatchy suits continues, but Judge Payne has now transferred another two of Nunes’s suits, this time against CNN and the Washington Post, to New York and DC respectively, citing lack of connection to his courtroom.

Nunes alleged he was defamed by CNN which ran a story in November citing Rudy Giuliani’s associate Lev Parnas, who claimed that Nunes met with disgraced Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin in Vienna in 2018. According to Nunes’s histrionic complaint, the network knew that Parnas was not a credible source, but ran the story anyway because “CNN is the mother of fake news. It is the least trusted name. CNN is eroding the fabric of America, proselytizing, sowing distrust and disharmony. It must be held accountable.” He claims to have been damaged with his California constituents to the tune of $435,350,000, demands venue in the Eastern District of Virginia because CNN’s story could be read there, but insists that his case should be adjudicated under New York law. Because … sure, why not.

The suit against the Washington Post concerns a February 20, 2020 article about a House Intelligence Committee briefing on Russian interference to aid Donald Trump’s re-election, which infuriated the president and resulted in the dismissal of Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. Nunes alleges that Shane Harris — but not Ellen Nakashima, Josh Dawsey, or Ann Gearan, the other authors of the piece — defamed Nunes by claiming that he told Trump about the briefing. According to the complaint, “Harris is well-known as a puppet of the FBI and CIA, employed to selectively leak talking points and classified information and to smear targets.” Nunes demands $250,350,000 for damage in the eyes of his California constituents, with venue in Virginia, but adjudicated under DC law. Because, again … sure, why not.

Well, apparently, Judge Payne can think of one or two reasons. In the Post ruling, he notes that the fact that the paper was physically printed in Virginia and could be read there is a “tenuous connection [] insufficient to give significant weight to Nunes’s choice of forum.” Nor was he impressed with the congressman’s argument that, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee he has oversight of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is located in Virginia. And His Honor was singularly unimpressed with the argument that transfer to DC, where Nunes actually works, “would accomplish absolutely nothing more than merely shifting the balance of inconvenience to [Nunes.]”

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In the CNN ruling, Judge Payne was even more direct.

[T]he Court has significant concerns about forum shopping, especially given that Nunes works in Washington, D.C., not Virginia. As the Court has explained to Plaintiff’s counsel on numerous occasions, the ‘Court cannot stand as a willing repository for cases which have no real nexus to this district. The ‘rocket docket’ certainly attracts plaintiff(s), but the Court must ensure that this attraction does not dull the ability of the Court to continue to act in an expeditious manner.”

But before shoving them out the door, Judge Payne unsubtly reminded Nunes and Biss that frivolous, abusive motions may result in sanctions, both for the litigant and his counsel. In both rulings, the judge quoted an admonition issued to Biss in yet another inane SLAPP suit filed by Biss in EDVA, saying:

It is with chagrin that [the] Court must begin to address this motion by observing that . . . Plaitiff[] engages in ad hominin attacks against [CNN and others in the Amended Complaint,] which the Court cannot tolerate. . . . The Court reminds Counsel for Plaintiff[] that, as an officer of the Court, he may be sanctioned for engaging in conduct unbefitting of this Court.

AHEM.

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Memorandum Opinion [Nunes v. WP Company, LLC, No 3:20-cv-00146-REP (E. D. Va. May 21, 2020)]
Memorandum Opinion [Nunes v. CNN, No. 3:19-cv-00889-REP (E. D. Va. May 21, 2020)]

Elizabeth Dye (@5DollarFeminist) lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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