[kbenson]

Nothing can protect you from the lawsuit being brought, but it will likely be thrown out. That's the same with anything, and whether you short a stock or not.

If you short it, at least you might make some money to offset any pending lawsuit. There's plenty of examples of people doing the same thing to fall back on, such as the guy who found out a newly listed company wasn't actually real[1].

1: http://www.npr.org/2015/01/30/382587945/winning-at-short-sel...

[fulldecent]

And even more general. Any form of profit will attract the possibility of defending yourself in court.