State Sen. Mike Henderson stands as he is introduced to the Missouri Senate on the first day of the 2025 legislative session (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).
The Missouri Senate unanimously passed a bill last week aimed at curbing meritless lawsuits filed to chill speech through the threat of a long and expensive legal fight.
The bill, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Mike Henderson of Desloge, would broaden Missouri’s limited protections against so-called strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, and create a faster path for judges to dismiss them. It cleared the Senate 31-0 and now heads to the Missouri House.
“These are lawsuits used to punish people with costly litigation to suppress free speech,” Henderson said. “Even if a defendant wins, the financial burden discourages them and others from exercising their free speech.”
Missouri’s current anti-SLAPP law is limited, applying only in a narrow set of cases and offering less protection than laws in many other states. Henderson’s bill would give judges stronger tools to quickly weed out lawsuits aimed at chilling speech on public issues.
The bill would replace Missouri’s current law with the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, a model statute that would allow defendants to seek early dismissal of cases arising from speech, press, assembly, petition and association rights tied to matters of public concern.
Under the measure, someone sued over protected expression could file a special motion to dismiss within 60 days. The filing would generally pause discovery and other proceedings, require a prompt court hearing and ruling, and allow a defendant who prevails to recover costs, attorney fees and litigation expenses.
A plaintiff who defeats a motion deemed frivolous or filed only to delay could also recover fees. The bill would also allow an immediate appeal if a judge denies the motion.
Missouri Right to Life and the Missouri Press Association are among the groups that have pushed for stronger anti-SLAPP protections for several years. Similar legislation has advanced in the General Assembly before but never reached the governor’s desk.
Eric Weslander, a Kansas attorney who has handled prominent anti-SLAPP cases, said the measure would move Missouri closer to other states with stronger protections for free speech.
“This bill at long last gives it some bite, and would cause Missouri to catch up with the roughly 30 other states with strong laws protecting citizens’ right to free speech,” Weslander said.
A former journalist who has represented The Independent in the past, Weslander was among the attorneys awarded legal fees after Kansas Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning’s defamation lawsuit against Kansas City Star columnist Steve Rose and the newspaper was dismissed under Kansas’ anti-SLAPP law.
“This is not a partisan issue,” Weslander said. “This is about protecting citizens from being punished and burdened by bogus, bullying lawsuits that seek to silence and intimidate them from speaking out on matters of public concern.”
Weslander said the fee-shifting provision is especially important because it forces lawyers and would-be plaintiffs to think twice before filing weak defamation claims.
“If this bill becomes law, Missouri attorneys will need to sit up and take notice: don’t blindly agree to your client’s request to haul off and file a defamation lawsuit against the client’s critics if you haven’t done your homework and can’t establish each and every element of your claim,” Weslander said. “Otherwise you may end up with an order to pay the defendant’s attorneys’ fees.”