SLAPP Away in Limited Civil

1150 Laurel Owners Assoc. Inc. v. Superior Court, No. B288091 (D2d3 Nov. 7, 2018)

Defendant in this limited civil case alleging a breach of a settlement agreement responded to the complaint with an anti-SLAPP motion. The trial court denied the motion, finding that an anti-SLAPP motion could not be brought in limited civil. The Appellate Division granted a writ reversing that decision. And now the Court of Appeal grants a writ reversing the App. Div.

It all comes down to § 92(d) of the Code of Civil Procedure, which says that, in a limited civil case, “[m]otions to strike are allowed only on the ground that the damages or relief sought are not supported by the allegations of the complaint.” So the question is whether an anti-SLAPP motion—which is officially called a “special motion to strike”—is a motion to strike within § 92(d).

The Court holds it is. The Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Baral v. Schnitt specifically points out that by calling an anti-SLAPP motion a special motion to strike, the Legislature intended the motion to work like a conventional motion to strike—as a way of challenging particular allegations within the pleading. So an anti-SLAPP is a species of the motion to strike genus.

Plus, § 92(d) was on the books when the anti-SLAPP law was enacted, but neither § 92(d) nor § 425.16 included any accommodation for anti-SLAPP motions in unlimited civil cases. To the contrary, there are a number of tell-tale signs that suggest the Legislature didn’t contemplate anti-SLAPP motions in limited civil. For example, although § 904.1 makes the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion in unlimited civil immediately appealable to the Court of Appeal under § 904.1, anti-SLAPP appeals go unmentioned in § 904.2, which lists limited civil orders that are appealable to the App. Div. 

Writ granted.