In Silverhorse Racing LLC v. Ford Motor Co., [Civ. Action No. 6:16-cv-00053] (M.D.Fla. January 30, 2017), the Court granted Ford Summary Judgment that the act of sending Demand Letters to Silverhorse’s distributors was litigation contact that is immunized from civil liability under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine.

Judge Conway found that the doctrine extends not only to petitioning of the judicial branch (i.e., filing a lawsuit), but also to acts reasonably attendant to litigation, such as demand letters.  Judge Conway instructed, however, that the Noerr doctrine is not absolute, and that to receive immunity the acts must not fall within the sham exception — i.e., the litigation activity must be genuine.

Silverhorse argued that because it had defenses to Ford’s claims, the demand letters asserting the claims were a sham.  Judge Conway was unpersuaded.  She said that the subjective strength of the claims are not determinative of whether the letters were a sham.  Because there was no evidence that Ford’s letters were objectively baseless, the Court did not have to examine Ford’s subjective intent.