I should have known something was up when I got all those new Google hits for the phrase “Rhonda Miller.” Via Drudge comes a link to the complaint filed last Friday by Rhonda “I’m a Media Whore, Not a Whore-Whore” Miller. Apparently, this fine lady, along with her attack dog Gloria Allwet Allred, has gotten the brilliant idea of suing Sean Walsh, Arnold Schwarzenegger, his campaign and 50 Doe defendants for allowing some of the puke from her puke politics to splatter back on her during Gloria Allred’s Tawana Brawley moment days before the election. If you’ve ever wondered what the word chutzpah means, yer lookin’ at it.

It’s also a textbook example of a Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (“SLAPP”). A SLAPP is a frivolous lawsuit designed to chill public debate rather than assert any legitimate legal rights. One example of a SLAPP suit was the moronic suit Infotel and their lawyers at Ryan, Brosman, Hammers & Closed threatened against Justene. This one is equally bad, if not worse, as it targets political speech, which goes to the very heart of the First Amendment. Query whether Rhonda & the Gang really expect to win anything in this suit, or if this is just another opportunity to get Gloria Allred back in the spotlight, where she seems to think she belongs.

Below are some of the silliest aspects of the complaint.

Items 2-4 on page 2 of the complaint each sound plausible enough when read by themselves, but become rather difficult to swallow when read together. Item 2 addresses the surprise press smear conference in which Allred & Miller dropped their bombshells about Schwarzenegger’s supposed assaults on Miller, which appear to have occurred while Arnold was not even on site (for some reason, that detail is not included in the complaint). Item 3 alleges that “less than an hour after the press conference was completed, defendants disseminated to dozens, if not hundreds, of media outliets and reporters and editors an e [sic] mail informing them that plaintiff Rhonda Miller was a felon with a long criminal record.” Despite this lightning-speed turnaround by the Schwarzenegger campaign, Item 4 turns around and alleges that [d]efendants knew that plaintiff Rhonda Miller is not the same Rhonda Miller as the person or persons identified in any of the filings of the Los Angeles Superior Court website, nor did they have any reason for beleiving that plaintiff has a criminal record of any kind.” Horrendous grammar aside, does anyone seriously believe that Sean Walsh & Co., who had probably never heard of Rhonda Miller I prior to the smear conference less than an hour earlier, actually knew they had fingered Rhonda Miller II by mistake?

Item 5 alleges that the widespread dissemination of Rhonda Miller II’s rap sheet has has caused and will continue to cause Rhonda Miller I “enormous financial and emotional damages and have placed an indelible stain on her previously excellent reputation.”

If rap sheets were a bar to employment in Hollywood, a lot of better known actors would be out of work by now. If Rhonda Miller I is having trouble finding work these days – and I don’t doubt that she is – it is because she deliberately smeared one of their own, not because anyone inadvertently smeared her.
If anything, the countersmearing has probably helped Miller to some extent; had she not been briefly but mistakenly identified as a felon, the focus would have remained where it belonged: on her defamatory statements about Arnold. The public soon forgot about Miller’s outrageous statements, but Hollywood did not, and it’s now widely known that anyone who works with her today could get raked over the coals tomorrow. That’s why she’s a pariah in Hollywood, not because anyone thinks she’s a prostitute. Nevertheless, Allred and Miller I thought this “they won’t hire me now because for 48 hours some of them thought I might be a prostitute even though no one cares about that stuff in Hollywood anyway” theory is basically reiterated in Item 18, on page 5.

Item 9, on page 3, applies the “it takes a village” theory of group liability to reach Gov. Schwarzenegger himself. Rather than allege he had any personal knowledge of Miller I’s excellent reputation or Miller II’s other than excellent reputation, Miller I’s attorneys are claiming that “Mr. Schwarzenegger, when confronted with the news of this outrageous action, did not disown it and indeed ratified these actions by his inaction in the face of these actions and thus adopted them as his own acts.”

So now, simply not acting is equal to actively participating in whatever it is someone else thinks you should have spoken out against. Mmmmmkay. I’ll buy that, just as soon as Bill “Tourette” Lockyer launches his criminal investigation against Gray Davis for ratifying through inaction Baghdad Bob Mulholland’s unlawful threats of “real bullets” to be directed at Schwarzenegger during the campaign.

Item 17, on page 5, is my favorite. That statement alleges that Miller I is entitled to general damages for “her loss of reputation, shame, mortification, hurt feelings, and emotional distress.” Silly me, I didn’t not know you could sue someone for shaming you or hurting their feelings. Better watch out Mr. Clam, they’re coming after you next.

Like I said, this case strikes me as a clear SLAPP, although I should caution that this is nowhere close to the area of law where I practice. Maybe someone more knowledgable about SLAPPs should consider report it to CASP and/or the California Bar.

UPDATE: Right on the Left Beach has more on the First Amendment issues that would doom Miller I’s lawsuit, independently of the SLAPP aspects. Like me, he uses the F-word (frivolous) to describe the merits of the suit. Coming from a lawyer, that actually means something – we don’t throw around that F-word nearly as often as most laymen do. When we say it, we really mean it.