In an opinion Friday, Judge Vyskocil exercised her discretion in refusing to adjudicate a declaratory judgment action filed by journalist Michael Wolff in state court (later removed) seeking a declaration that he did not defame Melania Trump. Ms. Trump’s lawyers had sent Wolff a letter demanding he retract statements in a Daily Beast article that the publication has since withdrawn. The letter invoked a pre-suit notice requirement under Florida law and stated that, absent a retraction, Wolff would be sued for $1 billion, presumably in Florida.
Judge Vyskocil concluded that Wolff’s lawsuit was an “abusively presented spat” because he engaged in “blatant forum shopping” by racing to file the case in New York, apparently in hopes of triggering New York’s more defendant-friendly anti-SLAPP law:
[T]o entertain this case would reward Plaintiff’s brazen attempt to “short-circuit” a suit by the First Lady in Florida, conferring upon him an undue “procedural advantage” by allowing him to “preempt the forum choice of the plaintiff to the coercive action.” This is textbook bad-faith forum-shopping, in which Plaintiff asks the Court to collude by “exercis[ing] jurisdiction over [a] declaratory action[] motivated by a desire to wrest the choice of forum from the real plaintiff.”
Judge Vyskocil added that it did not matter whether New York’s anti-SLAPP law would provide more protection to Wolff than Florida law. That only confirmed that gamesmanship was afoot:
This merely confirms the obvious reality, already discussed, that Plaintiff’s action here constitutes an improper rush to file first in anticipation of litigation in another tribunal, thereby enabling him to choose the forum and governing law by which to adjudicate the dispute, and otherwise to interfere with or frustrate the First Lady’s pursuit of claims elsewhere.