An appeal filed with the Virginia Supreme Court this week claims that a Montgomery County judge erred in dropping a civil case developer Roger Woody brought against several Christiansburg bloggers.

The petition for appeal filed Monday with the court in Richmond will be subject to review by a panel of three justices.

Last year Woody sought more than $10.3 million in Montgomery County Circuit Court from Terry Ellen Carter, Tacy Newell-Foutz, Carol Lindstrom and Meghan Dorsett for their involvement in blog postings that the lawsuit claimed were critical of his business practices.

The lawsuit filed by attorney B.K. Cruey of Shawsville accused the four women of developing a Web site to be used "willfully and maliciously" to cause injury to Woody and his business. The site listed, thinkchristiansburg.com, is operated by Carter and Newell-Foutz.

Lindstrom and Dorsett were later dropped from the case because they had no clear involvement with the blog.

Circuit Court Judge Ray Grubbs then ruled that the lawsuit lacked sufficient proof and specific language to sustain a case against Carter and Newell-Foutz and granted their request for dismissal.

In the petition for appeal, Cruey contends that Carter's and Newell-Foutz's defense of freedom of speech does "not protect them from liability for tortious conduct."

In the decision, Grubbs also dismissed Woody's claim that the blogs caused him to lose business, because it didn't specifically cite what harm was done. The appeal notes that: "If a statement is defamatory per se, Virginia law presumes that the plaintiff suffered actual damage to his reputation and, therefore, no proof of damages is required."

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Rebecca Glenberg, who represented Carter, said she is confident that Woody's case won't continue.

"We feel confident that the circuit court judge made the correct decision here and we fully expect that decision to be upheld," she said.

The courts are "now being tied up with this frivolous case about one person's objection to free expression. I will brace myself to continue the fight against someone with far more resources than I have," Carter said.

Newell-Foutz also said the case is frivolous.

It's "another example of how SLAPP suits unnecessarily burden our judicial system," she said.

Newell-Foutz said she would like to see the General Assembly pass legislation to discourage or prevent companies from filing what have come to be known as "strategic lawsuits against public participation."