Marchi's probably the first to fold. She has the least money to defend herself. MoRon are splitting the cost two ways (and I think Monica is more popular and is worth more on her lonesome, anyway) and Funimation is a multimillion dollar company. Dunno how much Marchi's fiance is going to finance this circus.
MoRon are also doing absolutely stupid shit that makes the whole case a lot harder to deal with for the other defendants. I can't imagine anyone is thrilled to be on the same side of the table as these two idiots.
If they file a TCPA at all. I think for both of them, it would just run up the expenses for all parties, delay the case, but ultimately be a waste of time. Vic does not have to prove his case to defeat an anti-SLAPP motion in Texas, he just has to present a prima facia case. In other words, he can defeat the motion by saying liar, liar, pants on fire and that their lies damages him, etc.
I don't think they really have a choice. I think it's definitely obligatory for Funimation to file one. They have the best chance at such a claim, because the accusations against them are an interesting hodge-podge of stuff that somewhat contradicts itself. It's in their interest to put the plaintiff to the task of stating the case more clearly.
I think there are actual reasons the conspiracy pleading is a bit muddy and that they won't actually benefit much from doing it, but it's the weakest part of the case. Texas is a notice pleading state and, so far as I know, even civil conspiracy claims are not subject to heightened pleading requirements, i.e. you don't have to plead every single aspect of the conspiracy up front, but if I were filing a SLAPP against one, I'd try to import something like a heightened pleading requirement and see if I could get a more definite statement of what the claim actually was.
I think it's fairly likely the defendants can make the plaintiff put more of his cards on the table to keep that claim alive. It's probably worth Funi's time and money to try that, because whether that claim is alive or not is really going to figure heavily in their settlement calculus.
So, I'm gonna put a thought out there, What if MoRon have been given some defense funds from Funi/friends at Funi?Knowing how stupid their group of smucklers is I'm wondering if they were given some extra green for their defense. While I doubt it, the thing is that ti is a possibility.
I'm going to go out on a limb a bit and say no. There is no way they'd greenlight the defense MoRon made. Very specifically, MoRon pointedly do not address, at all, the claims that SoyeBoye was acting as an agent or employee of Funimation. There is no way that omission is not intentional, and it is directly adverse to Funimation's interests.
I can't imagine they are happy at all about how MoRon are pursuing their defense and I can't imagine them bankrolling the knife in their back. (Also note the situation is really perverse, where MoRon have an incentive to actually let the plaintiff win on the issue of agency. I know we mostly note absolutely stupid shit Casey has done, but deliberately failing to address this one issue is one of the smart things he's done. Don't underestimate him just because he's filed stupid shit largely on purpose.)
Incidentally, getting to see stuff like this in advance is probably the smartest thing any party has done. The cases against Marchi and Funimation are not as strong as those against MoRon and MoRon have been almost suicidally stupid. I could easily see both of the other defendants stalling as much as they can to see what these clowns do to themselves in the hopes that they somehow commit sudoku in a way that saves them.
This would probably be easier on the judge. Alternatively, their attorney will file one motion, but address each defendant separately (there are joint allegations against Ron and Monica, but also a lot of individual allegations).
To go back to this for a bit, if I were BHBH or one of the defendants, I'd probably have gone to a whiteboard to map out the adverse interests at play here, because the parties are not all on the same page on every issue, but do share issues.
To pick some obvious ones, every defendant has an interest in proving that Vic is actually guilty of all these terrible things they've defamed him about. So you can be fairly certain the defendants, if they are acting rationally, are going to cooperate on this.
However, the huge issue where their interests are adverse is the agency relationship between Ron Toye and Funimation. Pleading this was a very interesting choice by BHBH and it's caused me considerable confuzzlement in contemplating its ramifications.
Funimation obviously doesn't want this to be the case. They do not want the albatross of the SoyeBoye hanging around their neck. They obviously do not want to be completely responsible for the actions of the dumbest idiot in the case. And MoRon obviously wants exactly that. They want a suicide pact where Funimation has to defend them because they're on the hook for everything.
And the claim actually looks weak and even ridiculous at first glance until you start gathering the facts and applying legal theories of agency to them. I imagine Funimation's counsel also would have looked at this claim as almost being laughable at the outset, but then had a series of oh shit moments as the facts started lining up with a bunch of agency theories they probably hadn't thought about since law school.
Things like subsequent ratification. (And there's probably about a half dozen or so other theories of agency I won't go into until the parties do because why give the bad guys ideas for free? Let's just say though that the defendants have to win on every single one of those. If the plaintiff can prove even one the SoyeBoye albatross is firmly around their neck.)
These agency claims are sort of a legal depth charge. They're nowhere near as weak as they look.
