On June 22, V. Sathienmars obtained a 12-0 defense verdict in favor of our client, Kulwant Singh, at the Old San Jose Courthouse in Santa Clara County, California, after a three-week jury trial in Dhillon v. Singh, a defamation per se case. V. co-chaired the jury trial with co-counsel Omair Farooqui of the Palo Alto Law Group. 

Plaintiffs were two governing board members of a Sikh Gurdwara in Silicon Valley. They contended that Mr. Singh, a Sikh missionary, wrote an inappropriate social media post about them to the worshippers regarding their temple management practices. Though the post was written entirely in Punjabi using the Gurmukhi script, Plaintiffs contended libel based on their preferred English translation of the post. To defend the case, V. studied Sikhism, Punjabi, and Gurmukhi to argue at trial that the English translation was an inaccurate 1:1 literal translation that did not reflect what Mr. Singh actually wrote or his intent in writing his post.

Throughout trial, V. also articulated an overall defense theory of the case focused on expressions of freedom of speech and free exercise of religion on social media.