Typically, though, when the Sierra Club has been sued, it is because they took a stand on a local issue, anything from a hotel on the California coastline to water projects to wilderness logging. It is devastating, or can be, at a number of levels. The acronym stands for strategic lawsuits against public participation in government. You have all kinds of emotional and psychological, as well as financial, pressures coming out of these. Divorces, lost jobs and health problems are not uncommon.
Threats are hard to measure.
But we found that even the threat can produce the same chilling effect, particularly if people have had any contact with litigation before and realize how time-consuming, demanding and distracting it can be. You can't just go down to the court and sue somebody for opposing you in a public political process. That is a no-no. About a third of cases are filed as defamation. But defamation is definitely the major camouflage.