The Georgia Court of Appeals drew a line between courtroom bluster and defamatory speech in a unanimous Oct. 20 opinion authored by Judge Todd Markle that overturned a Fulton County trial court’s denial of an anti-SLAPP motion in a dispute between two attorneys.

“Regardless of whether [privilege between opposing counsels] applies—although we conclude it does—we have found that a defamation claim is not actionable against an attorney who ‘was expressing his legal opinion about the situation of [a litigant’s] claims and the parties’ respective liabilities in relation thereto,’” Markle wrote in the opinion. “Moreover, we decline to burden trial courts with a duty to police ostensibly hyperbolic or inventive language between opposing counsel in their professional discourse.”

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