Friday, September 11, 2026
Page 3
Court of Appeal:
Producer’s Defamation-by-Implication Suit Was a SLAPP
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal for this district has reversed an order denying an anti-SLAPP motion in an action by a man who was producer/creator/writer of children’s television programs who claims to have been falsely portrayed, by implication, as a sexual child abuser in a five-part documentary, “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” aired in 2024 on Warner Brothers’ Investigation Discovery cable network and streamed on HBO Max.
Thursday’s opinion, authored by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Melanie P. Ochoa, sitting on assignment to Div. Three, holds that plaintiff Dan Schneider failed to show that his action has “minimal merit,” the second prong of the anti-SLAPP statute, Code of Civil Procedure §425.16. There was no dispute as to the first prong—protected activity—being satisfied.
Schneider does not claim that any false statement about him was made expressly in the documentary or in the trailer. His contention is that the viewer is bound to be left with the impression that he was implicated in child abuse.
Linked to Pedophile
One example was the statement that Brian Peck, a convicted pedophile “worked closely with Dan as his dialogue coach” and that Peck was “very much one of the cogs in the Dan Schneider machine” when he produced shows for the Nickelodeon cable network.
Thursday’s opinion reverses an order by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ashfaq G. Chowdhury, who ruled that Schneider “argues persuasively that defamation can be implied, that the trailer and the documentary state or imply that Schneider sexually abused children who worked on his show[s] and that Schneider was a child sexual abuser, and how the ordinary viewer understands the trailer and the documentary to be defamatory.”
He declared that the plaintiff “has pointed to a substantial amounts of evidence that could support his theory of implied defamation” and has shown at least “minimal merit.”
Third Parties’ Reactions
Considered by Chowdhury, but deemed irrelevant by Ochoa, were comments by reviewers and by persons post reactions on social media. Cited by Schneider in his brief on appeal were these:
“ ‘Alleged assaulter and Nickelodeon showrunner Dan Schneider accepting Kids Choice Award. -New York Post
“Nickelodeon policies ‘allowed Schneider and his colleague, dialogue coach Brian Peek, to get away with years of sexual abuse.’ - The Hollywood Reporter
“ ‘DAN SCHNEIDER - HARVEY WEINSTEIN - JEFFREY EPSTEIN - BILL COSBY - The Mount Rushmore of Sexual Abuse. JOSH PECK can serve as Tour Guide’ - Viewer
“ ‘Dan Schneider and Brian Peck really molested, groomed, and raped the children of Nickelodeon’ – Viewer.”
Arguing for affirmance, Schneider said, in his brief signed by Los Angeles attorney Jana M. Moser and New York lawyer Gerry Silver, admitted pro hac vice:
“…Appellants tacitly admit to the damning evidence of real newspapers’ and real viewers’ misunderstanding from Quiet on Set and its Trailer that Schneider is a child sexual abuser by ignoring the newspaper articles completely, and not even attempting to address the viewer comments until the very end of their discussion on defamation per se. Even then, Appellants argue that the Court should turn a blind eye and completely ignore evidence of what ordinary and reasonable viewers actually thought in determining what an ordinary or reasonable viewer might think.”
‘Illogical,’ ‘Wrong’
The brief continues:
“Not only is this illogical, but Appellants are wrong because (a) comments and posts have repeatedly been considered by courts in California and throughout the country as evidence that ordinary or reasonable viewers may understand the statements at issue to be defamatory; (b) the newspaper articles and viewer comments are not hearsay; (c) they fall under exceptions to the hearsay rule in any event; and (d) they have been and/or can be easily authenticated.”
Warner Brothers Discovery and the other defendants argued in their reply brief:
“Unable to challenge the Documentary itself, Schneider tries to salvage his claim by pointing to a cherry-picked set of internet commenters who posted about Schneider online. None of those comments are admissible evidence and none can be a basis to deny Defendants’ motion. Schneider cannot even show that the comments he cites came from people who viewed the Documentary—or real people at all. And regardless, the law is clear that individual viewers’ subjective reactions are neither probative nor dispositive of whether a publication communicates a defamatory implication. Online commentary cannot substitute for the objective reasonable-viewer analysis California law requires.”
Ochoa wrote:
“We agree with Defendants that the statements made by members of the public on various Internet sites are not relevant to the court’s determination whether the work is susceptible to a defamatory interpretation as a matter of law.”
Minimal Merit Lacking
The acting justice write that in considering “all of the allegedly defamatory components cited by Schneider” in connection with the trailer, including “a reference to pedophiles on set coupled with the images of three men expressly identified as ‘predators’ (none of whom are Schneider), and the description of incidents of child sexual abuse while displaying Peck’s name although not audibly naming him as the abuser—we cannot find that they reasonably permit the implication Schneider sexually abused children.”
He added:
“We similarly cannot find that the elements Schneider cites, scattered throughout Defendants’ three-and-a-half-hour documentary, can reasonably support the defamatory implication that he is a child sexual predator.”
The case is Schneider v. Warner Brothers Discovery, Inc., B343434.
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