By Contributor,Jay Adkisson

Copyright forbes

SLAPP ~ A form of strategic litigation or impact litigation.

Delaware has adopted the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act (“UPEPA”) as SB 80 which you can read for yourself here. As the UPEPA is the most comprehensive, modern, and widely adopted body of Anti-SLAPP law in the U.S., and actually the entire World, the citizens of Delaware will henceforth enjoy much more substantial protection of their rights to free speech, right to petition, and related similar rights.

The old Delaware Anti-SLAPP Act as found at 10 Del.Code §§ 8136-8 was just awful and provided little real protection for free expression. It was rated as a “D” statute which basically means that it was better than nothing, but only just barely. The old Delaware statute was limited to damages claims brought by a “public applicant or permittee” relating to their attempts to promote or challenge a rule or permit. There was no immediate right of appeal, no uniformity, and not much of anything else frankly. Broader free speech rights were simply not protected.

By contrast, the Delaware UPEPA covers a very broad range public expression and related rights. Delaware has also enacted a very clean UPEPA with very few non-uniform provisions. This means that the Delaware courts may easily take advantage of rulings on the UPEPA in other adopting states to interpret the Delaware statute. Overnight, Delaware has gone from almost no meaningful protection for free speech against harassing and retaliatory lawsuits to very substantial protection.

For instance, a journalist who write an honest article about somebody would not be shielded under the old Delaware Anti-SLAPP statue from a harassing or retaliatory lawsuit to try to make the journalist retract her story. By contrast, that would be protected by the Delaware UPEPA and give the journalist a path to quick dismissal of that lawsuit.

Delaware’s adoption of the UPEPA was unanimous, like so many other states, demonstrating the non-partisan nature of the Act. There was not a single vote against it in the Delaware Assembly. This brings to 13 the number of states which have fully adopted the UPEPA, nearly all of which were on unanimous or near-unanimous votes.

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The UPEPA has become, in only a few short years and by a wide margin, not only the largest body of Anti-SLAPP law in the United States, but indeed in the entire world. It provides an easy path for jurisdictions that currently have no Anti-SLAPP statutes, or states like Delaware that have very poor ones, to instantly upgrade to the cutting-edge standard. The UPEPA is also being used as a model upon which countries outside the United States are designing their own Anti-SLAPP laws.

So, congratulations to Delaware and congratulations to the UPEPA.

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