Plaintiff Must Pay Defendant’s Attorneys’ Fees in Libel Tourism Case, Despite Defendant’s Willfulness

In Trout Point Lodge Limited v. Handshoe, Cause No. 1:12CV90 (U.S. District Court, S.D. Mississippi, Southern Division, order entered December 11, 2013), the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi held that a Canadian plaintiff who filed suit in the U.S. to enforce a Canadian defamation judgment that was unenforceable in the U.S. must pay the defendant’s attorneys’ fees as provided for under the SPEECH Act, despite the defendant’s comments being willfully offensive. The SPEECH Act was enacted to quell “libel tourism,” the act of bringing a defamation suit in a country with more plaintiff-friendly defamation laws. The Act makes foreign defamation judgments unenforceable unless the foreign jurisdiction applied at least as much protection for speech as would U.S. law.