Why Documenting Abuse is Protected Speech: The Utah “Troubled Teen Industry” Sued Netflix Doc ‘The Program’ and Lost — Narvin Lichfield v. Kubler Precedent Explained

How a September 2025 court decision validates documentation of institutional abuse and demonstrates the legal risks of attempting to silence truth

By Michael Kelman Portney

Case Dismissed

On September 29, 2025, Judge Jill N. Parrish of the United States District Court for the District of Utah issued a decision that should concern anyone attempting to silence documentation of abuse through defamation litigation. In Lichfield v. Kubler & Netflix, Case No. 2:24-cv-00458-JNP, the court dismissed Narvin Lichfield's lawsuit against Netflix and documentary producer Katherine Kubler, granting their anti-SLAPP motion and ordering Lichfield to pay their attorney fees.

The case involved Netflix's three-part documentary series "The Program," which exposed systematic abuse in troubled teen industry programs owned and operated by Lichfield in Utah. Rather than address the documented abuse, Lichfield attempted to silence the documentarians through defamation litigation. The court ruled that the documentary constituted protected speech on matters of public concern and that Lichfield's lawsuit was exactly the kind of Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) that anti-SLAPP statutes were designed to prevent.

The implications extend far beyond one failed lawsuit. Lichfield establishes critical precedent: courts will protect those who document institutional abuse, and those who attempt censorship through litigation face significant financial consequences.

Understanding Anti-SLAPP Laws: The Shield Against Censorship

Anti-SLAPP statutes exist in many jurisdictions to protect speakers from lawsuits designed to censor, intimidate, or silence them through the cost and fear of legal proceedings. These laws recognize a fundamental problem: wealthy or powerful entities can use the litigation process itself as a weapon, forcing speakers to choose between expensive legal defense and silence.

The mechanics of anti-SLAPP protection are straightforward but powerful. When a defendant believes they're being sued to silence protected speech, they can file a special motion to strike the complaint early in the proceedings. This motion essentially asks the court: "Is this lawsuit really about a legitimate legal grievance, or is it about punishing someone for speaking on matters of public concern?"

If the defendant demonstrates that the lawsuit targets protected speech on matters of public concern, the burden shifts dramatically. Now the plaintiff must show they have a probability of prevailing on their claims—not just that they've alleged defamation, but that they can actually prove it. This is a high bar, particularly when the speech in question involves documented facts about matters the public has a legitimate interest in knowing.

The fee-shifting mechanism embedded in anti-SLAPP laws is what transforms them from theoretical protection into practical deterrent. If the plaintiff cannot meet their burden and the case is dismissed, they must pay the defendant's attorney fees. This isn't a discretionary award—it's mandatory. The plaintiff who files a meritless defamation suit to silence a critic doesn't just risk losing; they guarantee paying potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in the other side's legal bills.

This fee-shifting provision fundamentally alters the cost-benefit calculation of attempted censorship. Before anti-SLAPP laws, a wealthy plaintiff could file a meritless lawsuit knowing that even if they eventually lost, they'd inflict enormous financial pain on the defendant through legal fees. The process itself was the punishment. Anti-SLAPP laws flip this dynamic: now the filer of a meritless suit becomes the one facing financial devastation.

For well-funded plaintiffs with expensive legal teams, this creates an interesting paradox. The more money they spend on high-powered attorneys to pursue their censorship lawsuit, the larger the fee award they'll owe when they lose. Their investment in silencing speech becomes their liability.

The Troubled Teen Industry: Context for Understanding Lichfield

To understand the significance of Lichfield v. Kubler & Netflix, one must understand the troubled teen industry itself. This multi-billion dollar industry operates residential treatment facilities, wilderness programs, and therapeutic boarding schools, ostensibly to help struggling adolescents. Parents, often desperate and misled by slick marketing, pay tens of thousands of dollars—sometimes exceeding $100,000 per year—to send their children to these programs.

The reality behind the marketing frequently involves systematic abuse. Former residents describe physical violence, psychological torture, medical neglect, and educational deprivation. Many programs use isolation, food deprivation, forced exercise to the point of collapse, and humiliation as "therapeutic" techniques. Teens are often transported to these facilities against their will by hired "escorts" who arrive in the middle of the night—a process the industry euphemistically calls "transport services" but which survivors accurately describe as kidnapping.

The industry has proven remarkably resistant to regulation and accountability. Programs that face scrutiny in one state simply move to another with more lax oversight. When abuse is documented, facilities close and reopen under new names. Confidentiality agreements, mandatory arbitration clauses, and the isolation of residents from outside contact make documentation difficult and legal accountability rare.

Narvin Lichfield built an empire in this industry. His programs became notorious among survivors for documented patterns of abuse. When Netflix and Katherine Kubler produced "The Program" to expose these practices, they weren't making abstract allegations—they were documenting a well-established pattern of institutional abuse that had affected thousands of vulnerable children.

Lichfield's response to this documentation was predictable within the troubled teen industry: rather than address the allegations, he sued for defamation. This tactic has been used repeatedly by troubled teen industry operators. The goal isn't to win in court—it's to make documentation so expensive and legally risky that people stop doing it. It's to send a message to survivors: speak out and face litigation you cannot afford.

The court's decision in Lichfield sends the opposite message: document abuse, and the law will protect you. Sue to silence that documentation, and you'll pay for their lawyers.

A Personal Intersection With This Precedent

I have a direct stake in understanding Lichfield v. Kubler & Netflix. On December 21, 2001, I was forcibly removed from my home in Houston, Texas, and transported to Utah's troubled teen industry. I was fifteen years old. Two large men woke me in my bedroom with handcuffs while my mother, Abby Kelman Portney, stood by telling me she loved me.

I was told that because of security concerns following September 11th—which had occurred just three months earlier—any attempt to alert authorities at the airport or attempt to escape would result in my being treated as a terrorist threat. This wasn't an idle threat to a frightened teenager in late 2001. The entire country was on edge, airport security had been militarized, and the specter of terrorism dominated every aspect of public life.

I was transported across state lines through an airport, against my will, while my constitutional rights were suspended by private actors claiming therapeutic authority. I was held in a Utah facility for eighteen months. I received no meaningful education during this time. I was subjected to the standard "therapeutic" techniques of the troubled teen industry: isolation, humiliation, and the systematic breaking down of personal autonomy under the guise of treating behavioral problems that were never clinically diagnosed.

I consider this a successful kidnapping, funded by my grandfather Zollie Kelman and orchestrated by my parents. The fact that it was legal under the expansive powers parents have to institutionalize minors doesn't change the fundamental nature of what occurred: I was taken by force, held against my will, and denied basic rights for eighteen months.

The trauma didn't end when I aged out of the system in 2003. It continued to shape my relationship with my family for the next two decades. But the pattern truly revealed itself in 2024, when my investigation into estate fraud and financial irregularities involving my grandfather's assets intensified.

In 2024, my parents attempted to send me to another Utah facility—Cirque Lodge. I am now an adult. I have legal rights they cannot simply override. But they tried anyway. I have recorded phone calls with transporter Amy Jack in which she admits taking a retainer from my mother Abby to plan my transportation to Utah. I have documentation from Cirque Lodge confirming my parents initiated contact months before I had any knowledge of their plans. I have evidence of a systematic attempt to institutionalize an adult family member who was asking inconvenient questions about family finances.

This was an attempted kidnapping—unsuccessful only because I discovered their plans in time to prevent it. The intent was identical to 2001: remove the problem, silence the questions, and do it under the veneer of mental health concern and therapeutic intervention.

The Kennedy Book: Timing Worth Noting

In the summer of 2024—during the same period when evidence shows my mother was actively planning my second institutionalization—she mentioned to me that she had just read a book about the Kennedy family. She said the book documented how "the men did horrible things to the women." Based on the timing and her description, I believe she was referring to Maureen Callahan's Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed, which was published in July 2024 and became an instant New York Times bestseller.

The book's central thesis is stark: the Kennedy family maintained a multi-generational pattern of abusing, exploiting, and destroying women while keeping their pristine public image intact through wealth, power, and strategic silence. Callahan documents how Kennedy men physically and psychologically abused women and girls across generations, leaving "a trail of ruin and death in each generation's wake."

One of the most devastating cases Callahan examines is that of Rosemary Kennedy, sister to President John F. Kennedy. Rosemary had intellectual disabilities and showed signs of independence and sexuality that her father Joseph Kennedy found unacceptable. Rather than allowing her to live as fully as her capabilities permitted, Joseph Kennedy had her lobotomized at age 23 without her consent and without informing her mother Rose until after the procedure was complete.

The lobotomy—a crude psychosurgery that involved cutting into Rosemary's brain—left her permanently incapacitated. She spent the rest of her life institutionalized, hidden away from public view, her personhood essentially erased to protect the family's image and maintain patriarchal control. The family covered up what had been done to her for decades. Rosemary was disappeared, functionally killed while technically alive, because she was inconvenient to the family narrative and threatened the family's carefully constructed public image.

The parallel between Rosemary Kennedy's situation and my own is worth examining. Rosemary was inconvenient to Joseph Kennedy's political ambitions and patriarchal control over the family narrative. I was asking inconvenient questions about my grandfather's estate and the disposition of assets. Rosemary was institutionalized to remove her from the picture and maintain family control. My mother attempted to institutionalize me—an adult—during the same summer she was reading about this exact pattern of familial institutional abuse.

The timing raises questions that I cannot definitively answer but that deserve consideration: What does it mean that someone reads a detailed account of how institutionalization was weaponized against an inconvenient family member during the exact period when they are planning to institutionalize their own inconvenient family member? Was the book just coincidentally consumed during this period? Did reading about these patterns of family abuse trigger some recognition—or did it perhaps serve as a case study in methods?

I don't claim to know my mother's internal motivations or thought processes. I can only document the timeline: summer 2024, she reads Ask Not and specifically mentions the institutional abuse of women by powerful men to me. Summer 2024, she hires a transporter and contacts Cirque Lodge to arrange my institutionalization. The facts speak for themselves, though their meaning remains for others to interpret.

What is clear is that the mechanics of what was attempted against me directly parallel what Joseph Kennedy did to Rosemary: psychiatric justification for institutionalization, removal of autonomy, silencing through forced isolation, protection of family assets and narrative over individual rights.

The only difference—and it is a crucial one—is that I discovered the plan before it could be executed. Rosemary Kennedy never had that chance.

When That Failed: The Restraining Order

When the second institutionalization attempt failed, my grandmother—my mother's elderly mother—filed for a restraining order against me in Montana based on fabricated allegations that I had made firearm threats. My mother knew I do not own firearms. My mother knew the allegations were false. But a restraining order, even a temporary one based on false allegations, serves the same function as institutionalization: it silences, it discredits, and it creates a legal record that can be weaponized.

The restraining order was obtained in Cascade County, Montana, through proceedings that raise serious questions about due process and the abuse of legal mechanisms designed to protect actual victims of domestic violence. Using restraining order processes to harass and silence family members engaged in protected speech implicates both civil rights and the integrity of the legal system itself.

When that restraining order attempt also failed to silence my documentation of estate irregularities and family misconduct, my parents hired Arizona attorney R.M. Warner to send a cease and desist letter threatening defamation litigation if I did not remove content from my website, MisinformationSucks.com.

This is a twenty-four-year pattern spanning from 2001 to 2025: when my mother feels loss of control, attempts are made to institutionalize or legally silence me through psychiatric framing, fabricated legal claims, and intimidation. The specific mechanisms change—residential treatment facilities in 2001, adult institutionalization in 2024, restraining orders, cease and desist letters—but the goal remains constant: stop the documentation, silence the questions, maintain control of the narrative and the assets.

The Unbearable Witness

There is another moment worth documenting. After years of trying to make my mother understand what I had experienced in the troubled teen industry, I begged her to watch all three episodes of "The Program." I wanted her to see, documented by professionals, what these facilities actually do to children. I wanted her to understand what she had subjected me to in 2001 and what she was attempting to subject me to again in 2024.

She watched one episode. She told me she couldn't bear to watch the remaining episodes. She couldn't spend another hour and a half watching from the comfort of her couch what I had no choice but to experience for eighteen months. She couldn't witness, even secondhand through a documentary, what she had paid to have done to her own son.

The inability to witness is significant. She could read Ask Not—hundreds of pages documenting institutional abuse across generations. She could tell me about it. But she could not watch ninety more minutes of documentary about the troubled teen industry because it was too disturbing.

What makes something too disturbing to watch? Perhaps when the connection between the documented abuse and one's own actions becomes unavoidable.

And yet, faced with documentation of her own actions—both the 2001 institutionalization and the attempted 2024 institutionalization—her response wasn't remorse or accountability. It was to hire an attorney and threaten litigation to silence the documentation.

The Cease and Desist Letter and the Legal Response

The cease and desist letter I received from attorney R.M. Warner on behalf of Mark and Abby Portney contained a materially false and defamatory statement. It characterized MisinformationSucks.com as a website "wherein you post conspiracy theories." This characterization is demonstrably false and represents exactly the kind of misinformation my website exists to combat.

MisinformationSucks.com is a media literacy website dedicated to exposing actual misinformation and documenting truth. It employs proper sourcing, maintains documentation standards, and distinguishes clearly between established facts, reasonable inferences, and areas requiring further investigation. The irony of an attorney spreading misinformation about a website called "MisinformationSucks" while threatening a defamation suit was not lost on me.

I responded to the cease and desist with detailed legal analysis, drawing on the business law education I received at Stephen F. Austin State University's AACSB-accredited Nelson Rusche College of Business—the same accreditation standard as the attorney's alma mater, Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business. I pointed out that we had both studied the same constitutional law principles, the same jurisdictional doctrines, and the same business law fundamentals. The difference is that I'm applying those principles in defense of truth rather than in service of censorship.

My response included several strategic elements designed to demonstrate legal sophistication and eliminate every advantage typically leveraged in cease and desist scenarios:

First, I waived any challenge to personal jurisdiction in Arizona courts for all claims arising from this matter. This eliminated any potential jurisdictional defense or procedural delay. If they wanted to sue me, they could do so in their home court with no jurisdictional challenges from me. This removed a common excuse for not filing and forced them to confront the substance of their threatened claims.

Second, I offered to waive service of process. This eliminated another common delay tactic and demonstrated good faith cooperation with judicial efficiency. It also removed any claim that I was difficult to locate or serve, or that I was attempting to evade legal process.

Third, I proposed expedited discovery, suggesting we could skip preliminary procedural delays and move directly to document exchange. I offered to email my evidence immediately if they would reciprocate with the records I was requesting. This created a dilemma for them: refuse and look uncooperative, or agree and face immediate exposure of the documents they least want public.

Fourth, I demanded preservation of all relevant documents, creating spoliation liability if they destroyed anything after receiving my demand. This is standard litigation practice, but by raising it in response to their cease and desist rather than waiting for them to file, I signaled sophistication and created immediate legal jeopardy for any document destruction.

Fifth, I threatened counterclaims for fraud, intentional infliction of emotional distress, conversion, and—critically—defamation based on the false "conspiracy theory" characterization of my website in their letter. This transformed me from potential defendant to potential plaintiff, reversing the power dynamic of the cease and desist.

Sixth, I outlined in detail the anti-SLAPP exposure they would face, explaining how truth is an absolute defense to defamation and how documentation of family misconduct and institutional abuse constitutes matters of public concern protected by the First Amendment.

The response from opposing counsel? Silence. Complete silence.

This silence is not accidental or casual. It is strategic legal advice from an attorney who recognizes that every option available to his clients is bad, but that filing would be catastrophic.

Why Their Attorney Went Silent: The Lichfield Lesson

When I sent my initial response to the cease and desist, opposing counsel likely consulted with colleagues, researched anti-SLAPP law, and evaluated the strength of potential claims. The conclusion was clear: filing would be legal malpractice.

Then, on September 29, 2025, Judge Parrish issued her decision in Lichfield v. Kubler & Netflix. The timing could not have been more perfect for demonstrating exactly why silence was the correct strategic choice.

On September 30, 2025—one day after the Lichfield decision—I sent a follow-up letter to opposing counsel explicitly citing the case and drawing the parallel:

Narvin Lichfield tried to silence Netflix's documentation of troubled teen industry abuse through defamation litigation. He lost. My parents are attempting to silence my documentation of estate fraud and attempted kidnapping through threatened defamation litigation. Lichfield establishes this will fail.

I pointed out that Lichfield had professional legal representation, amended his complaint, participated in a full evidentiary hearing, and still lost with fee shifting against him. I noted that I had waived jurisdiction to Arizona, offered to waive service, proposed expedited discovery, and demanded document preservation—creating a situation where all their traditional advantages in litigation had been eliminated.

I explained that the troubled teen industry connection was direct and documented: I was sent to Utah's programs in 2001, my parents attempted to send me again in 2024, and when that failed they obtained a fraudulent restraining order, and when that failed they hired an attorney to threaten defamation litigation. This is the same pattern Lichfield addressed: institutional abuser attempts to silence documentation, fails, and pays the price.

The continued silence from opposing counsel demonstrates that they understand exactly what Lichfield confirms. Let me break down why filing would be disastrous for them:

Discovery would be catastrophic. Everything my parents want to remain private would become public record in litigation. Estate documents showing the disposition of my grandfather's assets. Communications about the 2024 institutionalization attempt, including those recorded calls with the transporter. Financial records for businesses they claim are defunct but state filings show are active. The Montana restraining order proceedings and the false allegations underlying them. Every email, every text message, every financial transaction related to any of the allegations on my website would be subject to discovery.

The timing of the Ask Not reading would also be discoverable. When exactly did she purchase or borrow the book? When did she finish it? When did she first contact the transporter? When did she first contact Cirque Lodge? Discovery would establish a precise timeline that would either show coincidence or show something more troubling. Either way, the facts would come out in sworn testimony and documentary evidence.

Anti-SLAPP protection applies specifically because I'm not making baseless allegations—I'm documenting patterns of conduct using primary source evidence. That's exactly what Netflix did with "The Program," and it's exactly what Lichfield protects. If they filed suit, they would have to prove that my documentation is false and that I made it with knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. They cannot meet this burden because the documentation is truthful and based on evidence that would all come out in discovery.

The mental incompetence narrative is dead. Throughout this situation, there have been implications that I'm not thinking clearly, that I'm obsessing unhealthily, that my focus on these matters suggests psychiatric problems. The ketamine abuse allegations have been particularly prominent in their framing of my supposed unreliability.

But my responses to their cease and desist demolished this narrative. I cited proper legal standards. I referenced jurisdictional doctrine by name. I proposed procedural mechanisms that demonstrated understanding of how litigation actually works. I found and cited a one-day-old court decision with directly applicable facts and holding. I structured arguments with clear organization and proper legal reasoning.

You cannot simultaneously argue that someone is mentally incompetent and respond to their sophisticated legal analysis and strategic procedural proposals. You cannot claim someone lacks credibility due to substance abuse while they're citing International Shoe and anti-SLAPP precedent correctly. The very existence of my detailed responses proves the falsity of their competence narrative.

Moreover, the specific capabilities I demonstrated—sustained attention to complex legal concepts, memory for detailed timelines spanning decades, strategic planning across multiple jurisdictions, research capability to find and apply day-old case law, impulse control in maintaining professional tone despite personal stakes—are precisely the capabilities that would be impaired by active substance abuse. My performance contradicted their narrative.

Fee shifting makes filing financially reckless. Even if they believed they could win on the merits—which the evidence contradicts—the anti-SLAPP exposure creates massive financial risk. Lichfield had professional representation and still lost with fee shifting. My parents would face the same outcome, but potentially worse because I'm proceeding pro se. If I prevail on anti-SLAPP grounds, they would owe attorney fees calculated at market rates for the time their attorneys spent, plus compensation for my time at reasonable market rates for pro se representation.

The more money they spend on expensive attorneys to pursue this case, the larger the fee award would be when they lose. It's a perverse incentive structure from their perspective: the better the attorneys they hire, the more it costs them when those attorneys lose.

Federal proceedings are coming regardless. I made clear in my response that I'm preparing a federal civil rights action in the District of Montana against Cascade County officials regarding the fraudulent restraining order proceedings. My parents will be third-party discovery subjects in that matter regardless of whether they file any civil suit against me. The website content they want removed is evidence in anticipated federal proceedings. Removing it would constitute spoliation of evidence, and no competent attorney should advise a client to commit spoliation of federal evidence.

This means that even if they somehow convinced me to take down the website through settlement or intimidation, the underlying documentation would still come out in federal court when I sue over the restraining order. They cannot prevent the information from becoming public—they can only choose whether it happens in a case where they're third-party witnesses or in a case where they're defendants facing counterclaims and anti-SLAPP exposure.

The Broader Implications of Lichfield

Lichfield v. Kubler & Netflix establishes principles that extend far beyond one troubled teen industry operator's failed lawsuit:

Documentation of institutional abuse is protected speech. Courts recognize that exposing patterns of abuse in systems that exploit vulnerable populations serves the public interest. This protection applies whether the institution is a residential treatment facility, a family business structure allegedly used for estate fraud, or any other system where power imbalances enable misconduct.

The key is that the speech addresses matters of public concern. Not just private family drama, but patterns of conduct that implicate broader systemic issues: How do wealthy families manipulate estate proceedings to disinherit intended beneficiaries? How does the troubled teen industry continue operating despite documented abuse? How are restraining order processes abused to silence whistleblowers? How do institutionalization mechanisms get weaponized against adults who ask inconvenient questions? These are matters the public has a legitimate interest in understanding.

Professional legal representation cannot overcome truthful documentation. Narvin Lichfield had attorneys. He amended his complaint. He participated in a full evidentiary hearing. He had the resources to fund sophisticated litigation. None of it mattered because the fundamental problem with his case was that Netflix's documentation was accurate.

This is the reality that cease and desist letters try to obscure: if the documentation is truthful and concerns matters of public interest, no amount of legal firepower can silence it through defamation claims. The First Amendment doesn't just protect popular speech or convenient speech—it protects truthful speech about matters of public concern, especially when that speech makes powerful people uncomfortable.

Attempts to silence truth often backfire spectacularly. Narvin Lichfield's lawsuit against Netflix generated exponentially more attention to troubled teen industry abuse than "The Program" alone might have achieved. News outlets covered the lawsuit. Legal commentators analyzed the anti-SLAPP implications. Survivors of the troubled teen industry rallied around Netflix's defense. The Streisand Effect turned attempted censorship into amplification.

My parents' cease and desist letter served the same function. It validated that my documentation matters enough to threaten them. It gave me content for multiple articles on MisinformationSucks.com. It demonstrated their consciousness of guilt—people don't threaten defamation suits over false allegations they could easily disprove with documentation. The cease and desist transformed my website from my project into their problem.

Fee shifting transforms the risk calculation. Before anti-SLAPP laws, wealthy individuals and institutions could weaponize the litigation process itself. They didn't need to win; they just needed to make defending so expensive that speakers were forced into silence or settlement. The process was the punishment.

Fee shifting inverts this dynamic entirely. Now the plaintiff who files a meritless defamation suit faces not just the cost of their own attorneys but the cost of the defendant's attorneys as well. For wealthy plaintiffs accustomed to using their financial resources as leverage, this is disorienting. Their traditional advantage becomes their liability.

This is particularly powerful in cases like mine where I'm proceeding pro se. My parents cannot outspend me because I have no legal bills to burden me. But if they file and lose, they would owe fees calculated at market rates for the time their attorneys spent, plus compensation for my time. They bear all the financial risk while I bear none.

Courts increasingly protect documentary journalism. Whether the format is a Netflix series, a published investigation, or a personal website, documentation of alleged abuse that serves public interest receives First Amendment protection. The medium matters less than the substance and the public interest served.

This is crucial for understanding MisinformationSucks.com's position. I'm not a journalist by trade, but I'm engaged in journalism by function: investigating matters of public concern, gathering documentation, presenting evidence, and allowing readers to draw informed conclusions. The fact that I'm personally involved in some of the matters I document doesn't eliminate First Amendment protection—if anything, it enhances my credibility as a primary source.

Lichfield confirms that individuals documenting institutional abuse receive the same First Amendment protections as professional media companies. Netflix had vast legal resources; the documentarians still needed anti-SLAPP protection and received it. I have no legal resources, but I have the same documentation standards and the same First Amendment rights.

What Lichfield Teaches Potential Plaintiffs

For anyone considering using defamation litigation to silence documentation of their misconduct, Lichfield v. Kubler & Netflix provides a clear roadmap of how such attempts fail:

Evaluate whether the speech concerns public matters. If the documentation addresses institutional abuse, systemic misconduct, corruption, or other matters of legitimate public concern, anti-SLAPP protection likely applies. Your personal preference for privacy doesn't override the public's interest in knowing about patterns of abuse, financial fraud, or misuse of legal processes.

Consider whether the documentation is truthful. If the speaker has evidence supporting their claims, you will face that evidence in discovery. Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. If you cannot prove the statements are false, you cannot win a defamation suit. Period.

Calculate the real costs of litigation. You will pay your attorneys throughout the case. If you lose on anti-SLAPP grounds—which is likely if the speech is truthful and concerns public matters—you will then pay the defendant's attorneys as well. The total cost can easily exceed hundreds of thousands of dollars for achieving nothing except drawing more attention to the very documentation you wanted suppressed.

Understand the Streisand Effect. Filing a lawsuit transforms a website or documentary that might have had limited reach into a cause célèbre. Media outlets cover the lawsuit. Legal commentators analyze the precedent. People who never would have seen the original documentation now seek it out specifically because you tried to suppress it. You create the attention you sought to prevent.

Recognize that silence might be your least-bad option. If documentation is already public and concerns matters of legitimate public interest, litigation cannot unring that bell. All you can do is choose whether to amplify it through the Streisand Effect or accept that the information is out there. Sometimes accepting the loss of privacy is less costly than fighting a battle you cannot win.

Federal Implications and Ongoing Proceedings

Lichfield v. Kubler & Netflix was decided in federal district court in the District of Utah. I am preparing a federal civil rights action in the District of Montana against Cascade County officials regarding the fraudulent restraining order proceedings that followed my parents' failed attempt to institutionalize me in 2024.

The Montana case will involve claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of my constitutional rights through abuse of legal process. When a restraining order is obtained through fabricated allegations for the purpose of harassing and silencing a family member engaged in protected speech, that implicates both First Amendment and Due Process rights.

My parents will be third-party discovery subjects in that federal litigation regardless of whether they ever file any civil suit against me over MisinformationSucks.com. The website content documenting the pattern of institutionalization attempts and legal harassment is evidence in the federal civil rights case. This creates another layer of impossibility for their threatened defamation suit: they cannot ask me to remove content that constitutes evidence in pending federal litigation. To do so would be to request spoliation of evidence, which no attorney should advise.

Additionally, federal civil rights claims provide another avenue for fee shifting under 42 U.S.C. § 1988, which awards attorney fees to prevailing parties in civil rights cases. Even proceeding pro se, I can seek compensation for my time at market rates if I prevail. This means that the Montana federal case creates yet another mechanism for fee recovery that makes legal harassment of me financially catastrophic for those who attempt it.

The Lichfield precedent strengthens my position in the anticipated Montana litigation by establishing that documentation of institutional abuse patterns constitutes protected speech. The troubled teen industry connection—both the 2001 institutionalization and the attempted 2024 institutionalization—creates a factual pattern that Lichfield directly validates as a matter of public concern worthy of First Amendment protection.

What This Means for Survivors and Whistleblowers

If you are documenting abuse—whether institutional, familial, corporate, or governmental—Lichfield v. Kubler & Netflix provides important validation and practical guidance:

Your documentation matters. The very fact that powerful entities want it removed demonstrates its significance. People don't threaten litigation over irrelevant claims. They threaten litigation over documentation that exposes what they want hidden.

Truth is your strongest defense. Maintain rigorous documentation standards. Save primary source documents. Record conversations where legal. Screenshot communications before they can be deleted. Preserve financial records. The strength of your First Amendment protection correlates directly with the strength of your documentation.

Cease and desist letters are often bluffs. Many such letters are sent with no intention of filing suit. They're designed to intimidate people who don't understand anti-SLAPP law or who cannot afford to find out if the threat is real. If you receive such a letter, consult with an attorney who understands anti-SLAPP law before capitulating.

Public concern matters. Frame your documentation in terms of broader patterns and public interest, not just personal grievances. How does your experience illuminate systemic problems? What can others learn from your documentation? How does your case exemplify broader issues that affect public safety, financial fraud, institutional abuse, or other matters of legitimate public concern?

Fee shifting protects you. Anti-SLAPP laws mean you may not need expensive attorneys to defend against intimidation tactics. The threat of paying your fees often deters filing. And if they do file despite this risk, prevailing on anti-SLAPP grounds means you get compensated for your defense costs.

Consider pro se representation strategically. While having an attorney is ideal, proceeding pro se in clear cases eliminates the financial advantage typically held by wealthy plaintiffs. They cannot outspend you if you have no legal bills. If you have sufficient legal knowledge to represent yourself competently, this can be a powerful strategic choice in appropriate cases.

Document the intimidation attempts themselves. Cease and desist letters, threats of litigation, and other attempts to silence you become part of the pattern you're documenting. They demonstrate consciousness of guilt and fear of exposure. They are evidence of the very misconduct you're documenting.

Pay attention to patterns and timing. When people consume media about institutional abuse during the same period they're planning institutional abuse, document that timeline. When people claim they cannot watch documentaries about systems they've used against you, document their inability to witness. These patterns speak to consciousness and intent, even when direct proof of motivation is unavailable.

Conclusion: Documentation as Accountability in the Digital Age

Narvin Lichfield spent decades profiting from the systematic abuse of vulnerable children in Utah's troubled teen industry. When Netflix documented that abuse in "The Program," he attempted to silence them through defamation litigation. He failed, lost on anti-SLAPP grounds, and had to pay their attorney fees. The attempt to suppress truth amplified it instead.

My parents sent me to that same industry in 2001, when I was fifteen years old. They held me there for eighteen months. In the summer of 2024, while reading a bestselling book about how the Kennedy family institutionalized Rosemary Kennedy to silence and control her, my mother was simultaneously planning to institutionalize me—an adult—for asking questions about family finances. When that attempt failed, they obtained a fraudulent restraining order through fabricated allegations. When that failed, they hired an attorney to threaten defamation litigation over my documentation of these events on MisinformationSucks.com.

Lichfield v. Kubler & Netflix establishes that courts will protect documentation of such patterns. It demonstrates that attempts to silence truth through litigation backfire. It shows that fee shifting punishes censorship attempts and makes legal harassment financially catastrophic for those who attempt it.

Most importantly, it validates what whistleblowers and survivors have always known: documentation is accountability, and accountability terrifies those who profit from or enable abuse.

The cease and desist letter was supposed to silence me. Instead, it validated that MisinformationSucks.com is effective enough to threaten those it documents. The silence that followed my detailed legal response demonstrates that their attorney understands what Lichfield confirms: filing would be catastrophic for them.

I will continue documenting. The website will continue operating. The evidence will continue accumulating. The federal civil rights case will proceed. And Lichfield v. Kubler & Netflix confirms that all of this is protected speech that serves the public interest.

That's not defamation. That's journalism. That's accountability. That's the First Amendment working exactly as intended.

And no cease and desist letter can change that.

Michael K. Portney is the publisher of MisinformationSucks.com, a media literacy website dedicated to documenting truth and exposing actual misinformation. He holds a B.B.A. from Stephen F. Austin State University's AACSB-accredited Nelson Rusche College of Business and is a survivor of the troubled teen industry. He is currently preparing federal civil rights litigation regarding abuse of legal process and continues to document patterns of institutional and familial misconduct. He is not an attorney and nothing on this website constitutes professional legal advice.