Supreme Court of California

A defendant whose assertedly protected speech or petitioning activity was illegal as a matter of law, and therefore unprotected by constitutional guarantees of free speech and petition, cannot use the anti-SLAPP statute to strike the plaintiff-s complaint.

Appellate Information

• Decided 07/27/2006
• Published 07/27/2006

Judges

• MORENO, J.

Court

• Supreme Court of California

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Levy, Ram & Olson, Karl Olson, Erica L. Craven, San Francisco;  Thomas W. Newton, Sacramento;  Karlene W. Goller, Los Angeles;  Harold W. Fuson, Jr., La Jolla;  Stephen J. Burns, Sacramento;  Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz and James E. Grossberg for California Newspaper Publishers Association, Los Angeles Times, The Copley Press, Inc., McClatchy Newspapers, Inc., and the Orange County Register as Amici Curiae., Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Tom Greene, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Theodora Berger, Assistant Attorney General, Richard M. Frank, Edward G. Weil and Susan S. Fiering, Deputy Attorneys General, as Amici Curiae.


• For Appellees:
  
• Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold, James J.S. Holmes, Christina J. Imre, Douglas J. Collodel, Orly Degani, Los Angeles, and Wendy L. Wilcox for Defendant and Appellant., Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman Machtinger & Kinsella, Bertram Fields and Ricardo P. Cestero, Los Angeles, for Plaintiff and Respondent.