- Supreme Court puts brakes on ALDF and opens door for white tiger defamation suit.

The Court said:

"Landry’s Inc., the owner of the Houston Downtown Aquarium, sued the Animal Legal Defense Fund, an animal rights organization founded by attorneys, and one of its lawyers for defamation, business disparagement, tortious interference, and abuse of process, among other things."*

In March 2015, Cheryl Conley, a radio station owner ("Backyard Radio"), asked Landry's for a behind-the-scenes tour of the tiger habitat. Landry's obliged, allowing Conley to photograph the tigers and their environs. Landry's also answered her questions about the animals. Conley did not run a story about the tigers on her radio station or elsewhere.

Conley then promply contacted the Animal Legal Defense Fund, (ALDF)

"ALDF issued a notice of its intent to sue Landry’s under the Endangered Species Act for alleged maltreatment of white Bengal tigers that lived at the aquarium. It also alleged Landry’s tiger facilities violated portions of the tiger care manual produced by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

On the same day ALDF sent the notice to Landry’s, it posted a press release on its website describing its service of the letter and criticizing the tigers’ conditions, including a direct link to the notice letter. It also sent the letter to the Houston Chronicle, and a TV station in Denver, where Landry owns another tiger exhibit. In the following days, both outlets ran stories on the alleged mistreatment of the tigers, and ALDF made several Facebook posts about them."*

NAWA spoke with several members which have many decades of tiger experience, some of which have been behind the scenes at the “Maharaja's Temple”, (white tiger exhibit) at the Downtown Aquarium.

"The Court of Appeals for the Fourteenth District of Texas dismissed Landry’s claims, agreeing with ALDF that they were barred by judicial proceedings privilege and attorney immunity. It reduced sanctions set by the trial court from $450,000 to $175,000.

But ALDF lost the judicial-proceedings privilege protections when it repeated the notice letter’s allegations for publicity purposes, outside the protected context within which the statements were originally made, the Texas Supreme Court said.

The protection can’t be stretched to include publicity statements that merely address the same subject matter as a suit but serve no purpose within it, Justice Jimmy Blacklock wrote.

And while many defenses to liability are available to individual attorneys who use the media to publicize their clients’ allegations, the absolute defense of attorney immunity is not among them, Blacklock said.

The court affirmed dismissal of Landry’s other claims including business-disparagement and tortious interference, finding it failed to show that lost income was caused by the statements rather than by other controversy and publicity about the way it treated tigers.

The trial court must now decide whether Landry met its burden of establishing each essential element of a defamation claim, Blacklock said.

Justices Eva Guzman, Brett Busby, and Rebeca Aizpuru Huddle didn’t participate in the decision.

Landry’s is represented by Peter C. Tipps, Aaron M. Streett, Michelle C. Pardo, Layne E. Kruse, Thomas R. Phillips, John M. Simpson, Michael S. Goldberg, Anthony Lucisano, and Joy M. Soloway.. ALDF is represented by Ryan D. Clinton, Adam A. Milasincic, and Philip Griffis."*  

View the Texas Supreme Court decision here.