§ 25-21,243.Defendant in action involving public petition and participation; action authorized; costs, attorney's fees, and damages; authorized; waiver; section, how construed.

Nebraska’s anti-SLAPP scheme does more than let a defendant get an unfounded suit thrown out — it also lets that defendant fight back. Section 25-21,243 gives a defendant in an action involving public petition and participation the right to bring a claim, cross-claim, or counterclaim to recover damages, including costs and attorney’s fees, from whoever commenced or continued the suit against them.

The statute builds this remedy in two tiers. Costs and attorney’s fees come first and require a lighter showing: the defendant need only demonstrate that the original suit had no substantial basis in fact and law and was not backed by a substantial argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law. Recovering other compensatory damages takes more — the defendant must additionally show the suit was commenced or continued to harass, intimidate, punish, or otherwise maliciously choke off the exercise of petition, speech, or association rights.

Two safeguards round out the section. The right to bring this countersuit can be waived, but only through a specific waiver — it does not disappear by accident or by implication. And nothing in the section cuts off any other recovery a party could otherwise pursue under the common law or under another statute, rule, or regulation.