Why We’re Stuck With $650,000 in Legal Fees, Despite Beating the Billionaire Who Sued Us


Ever since we wrote about MoJo‘s major victory in court against a billionaire political donor, you’ve been asking us: Can you recover your attorney’s fees? The answer, unfortunately, is pretty much:

Here’s why.

Under what is known as the American rule, everyone involved in litigation in the United States is responsible for his or her own legal fees, unless a specific state or federal law says otherwise. One exception involves anti-SLAPP statutes—state laws designed to prevent powerful people from shutting down critics by tying them up with expenses and paperwork, often via defamation lawsuits. (SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.) Twenty-nine states have laws against SLAPP suits, and there’s a push—championed by a Republican congressman from Texas—to pass one at the federal level as well.

Idaho, where Frank VanderSloot is based, and where he filed the defamation case against Mother Jones, does not have an anti-SLAPP law. What’s more, in her order granting victory to Mother Jones, the judge specified that VanderSloot’s was not a “frivolous” lawsuit. Under existing Idaho law, we would have to show, in front of the same judge, that the lawsuit was pursued “frivolously, unreasonably or without foundation” in order for her to let us recover attorney’s fees. Not very likely.

So that’s why we’re stuck with the $650,000 in out-of-pocket costs we incurred. Readers have pitched in more than $160,000 to help us cover that hole in just the past week. You can join them here. With you at our back, we can keep standing tall.

UPDATE: First Look Media’s Legal Defense Fund has agreed to match $74,999 in reader contributions to help us defray the cost of the litigation. Hooray!

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate