Man who sued 10 women over Facebook talk of his dating behavior has legal setback
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Nathan Solis April 9, 2024
Dating can be difficult. What if you get stood up? What if you are not compatible? What if you get a fake phone number?
And then there is the case of Stewart Lucas Murrey, who sued a group of women after they talked about him in a private Facebook group
, warningto warn
others about his bad
dating app
behavior
on dating apps
.
The lawsuit names
ten women
as defendants
10 women,
but a Los Angeles superior court judge recently tossed out the suit against one
of the women
.
Still,
Murrey vows to
continue to
pursue the legal squabble.
Murrey, a Santa Monica resident, said his social status took a hit because of the comments made by women who
m
he claims to have met through dating apps
in the Southern California region
. His June 2023 lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, accused the women of defamation and seeks $2 million in damages. He claims sex-based discrimination because he couldn’t join the Facebook group to respond to the claims made against him and alleges a civil conspiracy.
Murrey said he was labeled a murderer, and the women accused him of having a sexually transmitted infection, according to his complaint.
On Monday, Judge Gregory Keosian dismissed Murrey’s lawsuit against one woman after she filed an anti-SLAPP motion, which targets lawsuits that seek to censor, intimidate and silence critics.
Murrey’s lawsuit is centered around the Facebook group “Are we dating the same guy? Los Angeles.”
which The group
has
multiple
iterations across the United States. The first
private forum
started in 2022, according to the online magazine Glamour,
serving and served
as a “whisper network” to help women navigate the dating scene in their cities. The Los Angeles group was not created specifically to discuss Murrey, but he was the subject of a message thread, according to court records.
Judge dismisses Elon Musk’s lawsuit against anti-hate watchdog on free-speech groundsMurrey was the subject of a post in Women on
the Los Angeles-centered Facebook group
where women
shared
in a post
what they described as negative experiences with
Murreyhim
, according to a GoFundMe campaign started by the defendants women he sued to
payhelp cover their
legal fees.
One woman shared a story about an exchange she allegedly had with Murrey after the two matched on the Tinder app. He insisted on meeting
with
her that evening, but she was busy, according to a screenshot of her comment.
But
Murrey allegedly found her Instagram page and tracked
herthe woman
down
toa business meeting
at a Beverly Hills hotel bar
, where she was having a business meeting
.
Another woman, Vanessa Valdes, threatened to report Murrey when he allegedly insulted her in a message conversation on the dating app Hinge, according to a series of screenshots shared in her anti-SLAPP motion.
“I’m subpoenaing you’re (sic) idiot ‘report’ and possibly suing you for defamation,” Murrey wrote in response, according to screenshots produced for the anti-SLAPP motion.
“By the way, real decent women love me lol,” Murrey added.
More than 50 women wrote about him in the private Facebook group and were labeled co-conspirators in a “large-scale conspiracy to create a fake online social consensus,” according to Murrey’s lawsuit.
Keosian dismissed all
the
claims against Valdes
on Monday
during a hearing
Monday
on her anti-SLAPP motion and found no evidence of a conspiracy. Legal experts say it’s likely the other named parties in the lawsuit
will havecould find
similar success.
Valdes’ posts “involved a matter of public interest: women’s security against male violence and harassment,” Keosian wrote in his ruling. In one message posted to the Facebook group, Valdes wrote, “I’m so glad we’re protecting each other.”
“Just feels really good to be dismissed from all counts it wasn’t just the two counts of defamation, but all 11 counts he filed against me,” Valdes told KTLA after the hearing.
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Murrey posted his response to Monday’s ruling on a blockchain social media platform and on his personal website. He claimed he did not know Valdes
aside fromother than
their one interaction on the Hinge
dating
app and called her a cyberbully who shared his personal information online.
“This behavior should not be normalized and I am challenging every person in their various roles,” Murrey said, promising to pursue his legal case.
This is not the first time Murrey has
taken legal action to accuse a woman of causing him emotional distress.accused a woman in court of inflicting emotional distresson him
In 2019, he sued a
nother
woman he met on Tinder
, makingfor
similar claims of defamation.
Murrey represented himself in his latest lawsuit. Several other named defendants
in the case
have upcoming anti-SLAPP hearings in the case, and Murrey will have an opportunity to appeal the court’s recent ruling.
Malpractice attorney Frances O’Meara, who is not affiliated with Murrey’s lawsuit, said
the court has two prongs to consider when hearing that in
an anti-SLAPP motion,
the court must first consider ifIs
a person
is
being sued while
they exercise exercising
their
right to
free speech. If
sothey are
, then the burden shifts back to the person filing the lawsuit, and the question becomes whether the claim has minimal merit to proceed.
California was the first state to pass an anti-SLAPP law, in 1992, to target lawsuits that abuse
d
the judicial system.
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“The statute then expanded to situations of people suing just to shut other people down when they certainly have a right to speak,” O’Meara said.
Anytime
peoplesomebody
say
s
something on the internet, they put themselves at risk of being sued, said attorney Jeffrey Lewis, who is not affiliated with the Murrey case.
In order to succeed in his defamation lawsuit, Murrey would have had to prove that the statements made about him were false and that he suffered damages, Lewis said.
It’s likely the other named parties could find similar rulings from the court in their own anti-SLAPP hearings, he added. WE ALREADY SAID THIS
“Defamation lawsuits are really hard, unlike going to small claims over a breach-of-contract case, or somebody owes you money,” Lewis said. “People get sued all the time for saying things on Facebook, but a group of women posting about a dating experience with one guy, and the one guy deciding to respond with a lawsuit? It’s very unusual.”
