Can't say I'd ever heard of Highland Park's Hiram Walker Royall till last night, when I stumbled across this piece from the First Amendment Center concerning the developer's October '08 libel lawsuit, brought about because Royall's furious over the contents of the well-reviewed 2007 book Bulldozed: "Kelo," Eminent Domain and the American Lust for Land. And what's the book about? Says the FAC, the tome deals with Royall's "efforts to get Freeport, Texas, to use eminent-domain laws to enable him to build a marina where a shrimp business has existed for generations." (There's more here, from 2005.) But to be honest, well, maybe it's a bad idea to even mention this. Why come? Well, from the Institute for Justice's recap of the case:



When the victims of his eminent domain abuse in Freeport, Texas, complained, Royall sued them for defamation. When an investigative journalist wrote a book exposing the project, he sued her, as well as her publisher, for defamation. He even sued a prominent law professor who wrote a blurb for the book's dust jacket. When someone reviewed the book, he sued him. When two newspapers published that review, he sued them.

