The Center for Medical Progress, Thomas More Society, and Life Legal Defense Foundation attorneys representing CMP’s David Daleiden have filed a petition to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals challenging a lower court’s decision forcing CMP to defend against the National Abortion Federation’s efforts to silence their Planned Parenthood undercover videos.
Following NAF’s efforts to seek an injunction against the release of further videos, CMP’s legal team filed a motion “challeng[ing] the legal sufficiency of all 13 claims asserted in NAF’s Complaint and highlighted clear deficiencies in NAF’s only claim asserted under federal law, namely, the RICO (racketeering) law.”
A District Court rejected their claim that the motion “should have affected a mandatory stay of all discovery,” leading to this week’s appeal to the 9th Circuit. Their petition asserts “a right not to be dragged through the courts because you exercised your constitutional rights.”
“Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress should not be forced to comply with time-consuming discovery requests before the Court rules on the anti-SLAPP motion,” Thomas More’s press release asserts.
As Live Action has previously covered, the contested conduct Center for Medical Progress has engaged in to investigate Planned Parenthood’s harvesting and sale of aborted babies’ remains, including false names, a fake company, and wearing hidden cameras, has been been used by a wide variety of journalists and activists to investigate various scandals over the years.
