Virginia’s anti-SLAPP statute has received a lot of flak for supposedly not being strong enough to deter frivolous defamation actions designed to chill the exercise of First Amendment rights. A case decided last week down in Roanoke, however, demonstrates that just because fee awards are discretionary does not mean that fees won’t be awarded in appropriate circumstances. When a local family sued Black Lives Matter Franklin County and its Director, Bridgette Craighead, for statements she made about race relations in an ABC News segment, the court found the statements had nothing to do with the plaintiffs, were not defamatory, and were protected by the First Amendment. Because the case was utterly frivolous, the court awarded attorneys’ fees under the anti-SLAPP statute.
In the case of Crystal Minnix v. Sinclair Television Group, the segment at issue was titled “Cops’ role in Jan. 6 attack divides Virginia town with ties to Confederacy.” The focus of the story was on the Rocky Mount community’s reaction to the news that two of its law enforcement officers were apparently at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. For a duration of roughly four seconds during the video segment, the story included footage of a red, white and blue house owned by the plaintiffs while a voiceover states, “Rocky Mount is predominantly white and politically conservative.” Immediately preceding the display of the plaintiffs’ house, a reporter is shown interviewing Ms. Craighead in which Craighead says, “It’s their land and their country and we just live in it.”