Trout Point Lodge v. Handshoe

United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit · 2013 · Torts

729 F.3d 481 (2013)

Updated July 23, 2026

TortsDefamationForeign judgment enforcementFirst AmendmentSPEECH Actforeign judgmentlibel tourismdefault judgment

Facts

Handshoe, a Mississippi citizen, operated Slabbed.org and published posts linking Trout Point Lodge, Perret, and Leary to Aaron Broussard and making other insulting and allegedly defamatory statements about them. Trout Point sued Handshoe in Nova Scotia for defamation and related claims; Handshoe did not appear, and the Nova Scotia court entered a default judgment deeming the complaint's allegations admitted and later awarded damages after a hearing. Trout Point then enrolled the judgment in Mississippi to collect it. The enforceability dispute turned on whether the Canadian judgment satisfied the SPEECH Act's free-speech protections and whether the facts established in Nova Scotia would have supported defamation liability under Mississippi and First Amendment standards.

Issue

Whether the Nova Scotia defamation default judgment could be recognized and enforced in a Mississippi federal court under the SPEECH Act. Specifically, whether Trout Point showed either that the law applied in Nova Scotia provided at least as much speech protection as the First Amendment and Mississippi law, or that Handshoe would have been found liable for defamation by a Mississippi court applying those domestic standards.

Rule

Under 28 U.S.C. § 4102(a)(1), a domestic court may not recognize or enforce a foreign defamation judgment unless the party seeking enforcement shows either: (A) the defamation law applied in the foreign adjudication provided at least as much protection for freedom of speech and press in that case as the First Amendment and the law of the forum state, or (B) even if the foreign law did not, the party opposing enforcement would have been found liable for defamation by a domestic court applying the First Amendment and forum-state law. Under Mississippi law, falsity is a threshold requirement, truth and substantial truth are complete defenses, and default judgments are supportable only by well-pleaded factual allegations, not legal conclusions or vague blanket assertions.

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Nora Bell, a blogger in Jackson, Mississippi, published posts criticizing Red Cypress Outfitters, a fishing lodge in Alberta, and its owners. Red Cypress obtained a defamation judgment in Alberta under a rule that presumes falsity once defamatory meaning is shown and places the burden on the defendant to prove truth, then sought enforcement in federal court in Mississippi.

Should the Mississippi court recognize the foreign judgment under the SPEECH Act based on the foreign law alone?

Explanation. Under § 4102(a)(1)(A), enforcement is barred unless the defamation law applied in that case provided at least as much protection for speech as the First Amendment and forum-state law. The majority treated the allocation of the falsity burden as a critical difference: Mississippi requires the plaintiff to prove falsity, while the less protective foreign regime presumes falsity and makes truth a defense. That defeats prong (A).