Thursday, March 09, 2017

Help Ted Rall Fight the LA Times

I want to share the words below from award winning editorial cartoonist Ted Rall. Ted was terminated and defamed in the Los Angeles Times editorial page. He is suing them. The case is slowly moving forward. Ted is a colleague and someone I consider a friend. I have contributed to his case.

Please consider helping Ted Rall too.

Here's Ted:



Here's the latest on my defamation and wrongful termination lawsuit against the Los Angeles Times.

At the first of three hearings to consider the Times' anti-SLAPP motions against me, the judge in the case chastised both the Times' and my attorneys for violating court rules governing page counts.

The problem began because Times' attorney Kelli Sager submitted a 27.5 page anti-SLAPP motion against me, asking the court to dismiss my suit and award the Times' its six-figure legal bill. Court rules limit the page count to 15.

We adhered to the 15-page limit, but it wasn't possible to reply to 27.5 pages of argument with 15 pages. So in order to effectively counter the Times' 27.5 page motion, we used a smaller font size.

According to Law360.com: "At the start of the hearing, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Teresa Sanchez-Gordon announced she was continuing the hearings on all three motions to future dates and asked that the parties respectively submit amended court filings 'in compliance with court's rules and without appendices and footnotes.' The refiled documents should not exceed 20 pages, she said. 'I just want both of you to adhere to the California Rules of Court, that’s all I’m saying,' Judge Sanchez-Gordon said. 'I’m continuing this because I could not get through [them], I’m sorry.'"

Both the Times and I will resubmit revised anti-SLAPP and opposition to anti-SLAPP motions, respectively, to the court for hearings to be held in June and July.

"Many cartoonists in the States will watch what ensues with interest, considering it a timely test of the First Amendment," reports Cartoonist Rights Network International.
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