BY FERN SHEN
BALTIMORE BREW
JANUARY 20, 2025
For more than a decade, every year, advocates for strengthening Maryland’s law to protect citizens from baseless intimidation lawsuits have come to Annapolis to point out who suffers because of them.
Victims of intimate partner violence trying to get away from their abuser. Victims of harassment or sexual assault.
“It’s the clients that we represent, mostly in the protective order cases and in the Title Nine investigations, that are the ones that are at risk” of these lawsuits, said Katie O’Malley, executive director of the Women’s Law Center of Maryland.
Likewise, individuals who comment about a matter of public importance – or engage as citizens with their government – can also be victims of malicious, costly lawsuits, she and others told a Senate committee.
In an unusual twist, this year’s sponsor had a high-profile case from Baltimore to make her case for strengthening Maryland’s law against SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) suits.
Fells Point residents signed a petition to the city Liquor Board about “a new bar that would have had a large outdoor seating area right next to several residential backyards,” Senator Shelly L. Hettleman told the Judicial Proceedings Committee.
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