Daily Blast - February 5, 2019 - Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP

California Supreme Court Clarifies Scope of Anti-SLAPP Statute

On February 4, 2019, the Supreme Court published its in opinion in Rand Resources v. City of Carson (Feb. 4, 2019, No. S235735) ___Cal.5th___ [2019 Cal. LEXIS 635] examining what constitutes an issue of public interest for purposes of prevailing on an anti-SLAPP motion. (Slip opn., p. 11.)

In this instance, Rand Resources had an exclusive contract with the City to negotiate construction of a NFL stadium. (Slip opn., p. 1.) When the City replaced Rand Resources with another company, Rand Resources sued for various fraud based actions alleging the City and the company conspired to conceal the breach of the contract with Rand Resources by meeting in secret and exchanging confidential emails. (Id. at p. 13.) The City brought an anti-SLAPP motion contending any such activities arose out of the public interest issue of building a NFL stadium.

The court narrowly defined the scope of speech concerning the public interest as speech relating to an “issue at hand” rather than an indirect, future issue.(Slip Opn., p. 12.) As a result, the court held that the subject matter of the speech must relate to an official proceeding pending at the time of the speech. (Id. at p. 20.) The court endeavored to prevent the anti-SLAPP statute from “swallow[ing] a person’s every contact with government” and “absorb[ing] every commercial dispute that happens to touch on the public interest.” (Id. at p. 25.)

The court’s opinion was lengthy and comprehensive. You may benefit from reading the opinion for an in-depth analysis of the anti-SLAPP statute’s provisions.