According to a Twin Cities news outlet, a man named Keith Mueller is pushing to change a state law to protect someone from being sued for calling the cops. The Minnesota anti-SLAPP statute's current language protecting public participation is too vague and needs to include reporting apparent unlawful conduct to police, he contends. The judiciary has struggled to determine if calling police constitutes public participation under Minnesota law. Here, in California of course, police reports and any attempts to report suspected wrongdoing to any government agency are considered acts in furtherance of public participation under CCP 425.16(e)(1),(2), (4). A bill was heard in the Minnesota Legislature that would add language clarifying public participation to include calling police, speaking out about development, communicating with lawmakers, peaceful demonstrations and filing complaints with the government about safety, sexual harassment, civil rights or equal employment. The motion is to be heard March 10 in the Mueller case.
Minnesota statute 554, known as the state's anti-SLAPP statute, defines public participation as "speech or lawful conduct that is genuinely aimed in whole or in part at procuring favorable government action." This is the statute Mueller seeks to strengthen because of confusion over what constitutes public participation. This should make explicit what was implicit all along.
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