FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ODETTE R. BATIS, on behalf of 

herself and all others similarly 

situated, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, 

INC., 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 23-15260 

D.C. No. 3:22-cv01924-MMC 

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

Maxine M. Chesney, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted January 9, 2024

San Francisco, California

Filed July 8, 2024

Before: Eugene E. Siler,* Richard R. Clifton, and Milan D. 

Smith, Jr., Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Clifton

*The Honorable Eugene E. Siler, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. 

Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.
2 BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC. 

SUMMARY**

California Anti-SLAPP Statute

The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of a motion 

by Dun & Bradstreet Holdings, Inc. (“D&B”) to strike 

Odette Batis’s putative class action under section 425.16 of 

California’s anti-SLAPP statute.

Batis challenged the use of her name and contact 

information in the free trial for the D&B Hoovers database, 

a searchable business-to-business database. She alleged that 

the use of that information without her permission violated 

her right of publicity under California law.

The panel held that Batis’s lawsuit was immune from an 

anti-SLAPP motion under the public interest exemption, 

Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 425.17(b). Because Batis’s lawsuit 

sought to enforce an important right under California law 

and she did not seek any relief different from the rest of the 

class, her lawsuit fell within that exemption.

COUNSEL

Ben R. Osborn (argued), Law Office of Benjamin R. Osborn, 

Brooklyn, New York; Marie N. Appel and Michael F. Ram, 

Morgan & Morgan, San Francisco, California; for PlaintiffAppellee.

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
 BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC. 3 

Michael R. O'Donnell (argued), and Michael P. O'Mullan, 

Riker Danzig LLP, Morristown, New Jersey; Ashley I. 

Kissinger, Ballard Spahr LLP, Denver, Colorado; Elizabeth 

L. Schilken, Ballard Spahr LLP, Los Angeles, California; 

Emmy Parsons, Ballard Spahr LLP, Washington, D.C.; for 

Defendant-Appellant. 

Rebecca Tushnet, Harvard University Law School; 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, for Amicus Curiae Intellectual 

Property and First Amendment Law Professors. 

OPINION

CLIFTON, Circuit Judge: 

Plaintiff-Appellee Odette R. Batis brought a putative 

class action against Dun & Bradstreet Holdings, Inc. 

(“D&B”), challenging the use of her name and contact 

information in the free trial for the D&B Hoovers database. 

Batis alleges that the use of that information without her 

permission violates her right of publicity under California 

law. 

D&B filed a motion to strike under section 425.16 of 

California’s anti-SLAPP statute, arguing that Batis’s claims 

“arise from D&B’s acts in furtherance of the right of free 

speech.” The district court denied the motion on the merits, 

holding that D&B had “failed to make a threshold showing 

that Batis’s claims arise from protected activity.” 

We conclude that Batis’s lawsuit is exempt from antiSLAPP motions under California law. The anti-SLAPP 

statute does not apply to any lawsuits brought “solely in the 

public interest or on behalf of the general public.” Cal. Civ. 
4 BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC.

Proc. Code § 425.17(b). As Batis’s lawsuit seeks to enforce 

an important right under California law and she does not 

seek any relief different from the rest of the class, her lawsuit 

falls within that exemption. We therefore affirm the denial 

of D&B’s anti-SLAPP motion without reaching the grounds 

on which the district court relied.

I. Background

D&B operates D&B Hoovers, a searchable business-tobusiness database that contains information about businesses

and other organizations across the United States. The 

database also contains professional contact information for 

the millions of individuals who work at the profiled entities. 

Anyone who searches the name of an individual 

professional, either through a search engine or on the D&B 

Hoovers database, can access a profile that contains some of 

the individual’s contact information alongside messages 

informing the prospective customer they must purchase a 

subscription to access the remainder of that information. 

Plaintiffs allege that subscriptions cost more than $10,000 

per year, but individuals can sign up for a free trial of the 

service, during which they continue to see messages 

alongside profiles suggesting the upgrade to a full 

subscription.

Batis is a librarian whose professional contact 

information is included in the D&B Hoovers database and is 

accessible during the free trial. Batis filed a putative class 

action against D&B on March 25, 2022, alleging that its 

system uses the names of her and other California residents

without their consent to promote subscriptions to D&B 

Hoovers. She asserts that this commercial use of her name 

violates California’s right of publicity and unfair 

competition laws and constitutes tortious misappropriation 
BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC. 5

of her name and likeness. Batis seeks a declaration that D&B 

has infringed on her state-law privacy and intellectual 

property rights, injunctive relief, restitution, and damages.

Based on California’s anti-SLAPP statute, D&B filed a 

motion to strike, arguing that Batis’s claims “arise from 

D&B’s acts in furtherance of the right of free speech.” In the 

alternative, D&B moved to dismiss Batis’s lawsuit under 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of standing 

and under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. The 

district court denied all of D&B’s motions on the merits,

holding that Batis had standing to sue and that D&B had not 

established that Batis’s lawsuit targeted protected speech. 

After D&B appealed the denial of its motion to strike,

1

we affirmed in a memorandum disposition, holding that our 

court’s decision in Martinez v. ZoomInfo Technologies, Inc., 

82 F.4th 785 (9th Cir. 2023), mandated the conclusion that 

Batis’s lawsuit is exempted from the anti-SLAPP statute 

under section 425.17(b). Our court subsequently vacated the 

Martinez opinion and ordered that case to be reheard en 

banc. 

Before that rehearing could take place, the parties in 

Martinez reached a tentative settlement agreement. After our 

court was informed, the scheduled oral argument before the 

1 While the parties dispute whether we have jurisdiction to hear this 

appeal, we are bound by existing precedent stating that the denial of an 

anti-SLAPP motion is immediately appealable under the collateral order 

doctrine. Batzel v. Smith, 333 F.3d 1018, 1026 (9th Cir. 2003); Langer 

v. Kiser, 57 F.4th 1085, 1104 (9th Cir. 2023). We take no position on 

Batis’s request that our court revisit that precedent. Batis separately notes 

that the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion is not immediately appealable 

when the district court relies on a statutory exemption, Cal. Civ. Proc. 

Code § 425.17(e), but the district court below decided D&B’s motion on 

the merits, see Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 425.16(b).
6 BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC.

en banc panel was taken off calendar and the parties in that 

case were ordered to provide status reports on the progress 

of the settlement. Because Martinez, like this case, involved 

a putative class action, the settlement process requires more 

than the agreement of the parties—notably, review and 

approval by the district court where the class action is 

pending. In their first status report, the parties advised the 

court that they had executed a definitive agreement and 

would proceed to seek approval by the district court, a 

process likely to take months.

Because the Martinez precedent on which our 

memorandum disposition had relied has been vacated, we 

withdrew our prior disposition. We now consider the 

relevant issues directly.

II. Discussion

We review de novo the denial of an anti-SLAPP motion, 

Jordan-Benel v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 859 F.3d 1184, 

1188 (9th Cir. 2017), “accept[ing] plaintiff’s submissions as 

true and consider[ing] only whether any contrary evidence 

from the defendant establishes its entitlement to prevail as a 

matter of law,” Park v. Bd. of Trustees of Cal. State Univ., 

393 P.3d 905, 911 (Cal. 2017). We conclude that the antiSLAPP statute does not authorize a motion to strike against 

Batis’s lawsuit. 

A. Public Interest Exemption

California’s anti-SLAPP statute protects against 

“strategic lawsuits against public participation”—“‘lawsuits 

brought primarily to chill’ the exercise of speech and petition 

rights.” FilmOn.com Inc. v. DoubleVerify Inc., 439 P.3d 

1156, 1160 (Cal. 2019) (quoting Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 

425.16(a)). The statute “was enacted to protect nonprofit 
BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC. 7

corporations and common citizens ‘from large corporate 

entities and trade associations’ in petitioning government.” 

Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

When assessing a motion to strike brought under the 

statute, “[b]efore engaging in [the merits] analysis, a court 

must consider any claims by the plaintiff that a statutory 

exemption contained in section 425.17 applies.” Takhar v. 

People ex rel. Feather River Air Quality Mgmt. Dist., 237 

Cal. Rptr. 3d 759, 766 (Ct. App. 2018) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). One such exemption applies to “any action 

brought solely in the public interest or on behalf of the 

general public” in which (1) the plaintiff does not seek relief 

different from the rest of any class of which she is a member, 

(2) the action would enforce an “important right affecting the 

public interest,” and (3) “[p]rivate enforcement is necessary 

and places a disproportionate financial burden on the 

plaintiff.” Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 425.17(b). Batis asserts 

that her lawsuit meets these criteria and is therefore immune 

from anti-SLAPP motions under this “public interest 

exemption.”2

2 D&B correctly notes that Batis arguably waived any argument under 

section 425.17(b) by failing to discuss that section below. Nevertheless, 

this court has discretion to excuse any such waiver in exceptional 

circumstances. In re Am. W. Airlines, Inc., 217 F.3d 1161, 1165 (9th Cir. 

2000) (“One ‘exceptional circumstance’ is when the issue is one of law 

and either does not depend on the factual record, or the record has been 

fully developed.”). This issue is one of law that primarily involves 

assessing the face of Batis’s complaint. The only other necessary facts 

involve the degree to which the D&B Hoovers database features 

protected speech, a question which was at the center of D&B’s briefing 

and factual development below. We therefore excuse Batis’s waiver of 

this issue. Romain v. Shear, 799 F.2d 1416, 1419 (9th Cir. 1986).
8 BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC.

1. Relief Different from the Class

D&B’s primary counterargument is that because Batis 

seeks damages that may require an individualized 

determination, she is seeking “personal relief” different from 

the rest of the class. That interpretation of the statute’s 

requirements is overly restrictive. California courts are clear 

that plaintiffs can still invoke the public interest exemption 

even if their lawsuit seeks monetary relief. In Strathmann, 

the court held that “[a] claim brought on behalf of the general 

public might include some kind of individual relief, in which 

case, it would have to be determined under section 

425.17(b)(1) whether that relief is greater than or different 

from the relief sought for the general public.” People ex rel. 

Strathmann v. Acacia Rsch. Corp., 148 Cal. Rptr. 3d 361, 

371 (Ct. App. 2012). While Strathmann involved a qui tam

action, class actions can also invoke section 425.17(b). See 

Ingels v. Westwood One Broad. Servs., Inc., 28 Cal. Rptr. 3d

933, 942, 1066 (Ct. App. 2005) (citing Sen. Com. on 

Judiciary, Analysis of Sen. Bill No. 515 (2003–2004 Reg. 

Sess.) as amended May 1, 2003, p. 13). In either type of case, 

the fact that a litigant may receive money from a suit does 

not inherently bar the application of the public interest 

exemption.

Instead, California courts have only barred plaintiffs 

from invoking the public interest exemption when they seek 

relief to which other class members would not be entitled on 

the face of the complaint. In Club Members for an Honest 

Election v. Sierra Club, 196 P.3d 1094, 1099 (Cal. 2008), 

the complaint sought certain relief that would solely advance 

its members’ own interests, such as board seats for its 

members and the publication of an article espousing its own 

views. Id. The California Supreme Court noted that the bar 

on “any personal relief” prohibits seeking “a more narrow 
BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC. 9

advantage for a particular plaintiff,” and therefore held that 

the plaintiff impermissibly sought “relief greater than or 

different from the relief sought for the general public.” Id. at 

1098 (quoting Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 425.17(b)). In other 

cases where lower courts held that the public interest 

exemption did not apply, the plaintiffs sought damages for 

themselves that they did not seek for other members of the 

putative class. Ingels, 28 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 942-44; Thayer v. 

Kabateck Brown Kellner LLP, 143 Cal. Rptr. 3d 17, 29 (Ct. 

App. 2012), as modified (June 22, 2012) (“It is clear that 

Thayer seeks relief much greater than the relief sought for 

the purported class.”).

In assessing whether a putative class action falls under 

that exemption, the question is therefore whether the 

complaint pursues the same categories of relief for all class 

members. It matters not whether all class members are likely 

to ultimately establish entitlement to all forms of requested 

relief, as long as nothing in the complaint inherently 

precludes them from doing so.

Here, Batis has requested all relief on behalf of all 

members of the alleged class. For instance, while D&B notes 

that Batis seeks “[e]motional distress damages,” which it 

asserts “are highly individualized,” her complaint clearly 

seeks such damages on behalf of both “Plaintiff and the 

Class.” While D&B may find it implausible that the whole 

putative class experienced emotional distress, Batis’s 

complaint does not expressly preclude any subset of the class 

from seeking such relief. If the putative class is ultimately 

certified—a question on which we take no position here—

any class member will have the opportunity to establish 

entitlement to any forms of relief for which D&B is held 

liable.
10 BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC.

2. Important Right Affecting the Public Interest

The second prong of the public interest exemption asks 

whether a lawsuit seeks to “enforce an important right 

affecting the public interest” and would “confer a significant 

benefit” on the general public. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code 

§ 425.17(b)(2). In assessing that question, courts examine 

the “complaint to determine whether [the] lawsuit is of the 

kind that seeks to vindicate public policy goals.” Tourgeman 

v. Nelson & Kennard, 166 Cal. Rptr. 3d 729, 743 (Ct. App. 

2014).

Batis’s lawsuit clearly intersects with California’s public 

policy goal of protecting an individual’s right to control the 

use of his or her persona. When California was becoming the 

center of the entertainment industry a century ago, its courts 

enshrined a state constitutional right to privacy in a case 

authorizing a tort action for the use of one’s name and 

biography without permission. Melvin v. Reid, 297 P. 91, 93 

(Cal. Ct. App. 1931). Since then, California courts have 

continued to underscore the state’s public policy 

commitment to protecting its citizens’ property and privacy 

rights, confirming that the unauthorized use of a person’s 

name for commercial exploitation is actionable even when 

targeted at private citizens with no public reputation. Stilson 

v. Reader’s Dig. Ass’n, Inc., 104 Cal. Rptr. 581, 582 (Ct. 

App. 1972); see also Fairfield v. Am. Photocopy Equip. Co., 

291 P.2d 194, 197 (Cal. Ct. App. 1955) (condemning right 

of publicity exploitation as “one of the most flagrant and 

common means of invasion of privacy”). The California 

public endorsed the state’s commitment to privacy in a 1972 

ballot measure that explicitly added privacy to the state’s 

constitutional rights. Hill v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 

7 Cal. 4th 1, 15 (1994); see also Cal. Const. Art. I, § 1.
BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC. 11

This tradition demonstrates that California considers the 

right to control one’s name and likeness to be an important 

right affecting the public interest. Batis’s lawsuit, on the face 

of the complaint, seeks to enforce this deeply engrained 

right. That is sufficient to meet the second prong of the 

public interest exemption, whether or not the conduct she 

challenges constitutes a particularly egregious violation of 

that right.

3. Necessity of Private Enforcement

Finally, Batis also satisfies the third criterion of the 

public interest exemption because private enforcement is 

both necessary and disproportionately burdensome. See Cal. 

Civ. Proc. Code § 425.17(b)(3). California courts have held 

that if no public entity has sought to enforce the right 

plaintiff seeks to vindicate in the lawsuit, “[t]his fact alone 

is a sufficient basis to conclude the action is ‘necessary,’ 

within the meaning of the public interest exception.” Inland 

Oversight Comm. v. Cnty. of San Bernardino, 190 Cal. Rptr. 

3d 884, 887–88 (Ct. App. 2015); see also Tourgeman, 166 

Cal. Rptr. 3d at 744 (citing cases). There is no indication that 

a public entity has brought a similar action against D&B. 

Meanwhile, a case is disproportionately burdensome if 

“the cost of [Batis’s] legal victory transcends [her] personal 

interest.” Tourgeman, 166 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 744 (quoting 

Blanchard v. DIRECTV, Inc., 20 Cal. Rptr. 3d 385, 393 (Ct. 

App. 2004)). As Batis may struggle to demonstrate the 

economic value of her name or likeness, she may recover 

only the minimum statutory damages of $750, which would 

not cover the cost of litigating this action. See Cal. Civ. Code 

§ 3344(a). If her class action is successful, Batis’s personal 

recovery would be dwarfed by the total recovery for the 
12 BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC.

putative class, which she alleges may number in the 

millions.

B. Section 425.17(d)

D&B argues that section 425.17(d) precludes application 

of the public interest exemption to Batis’s lawsuit.3 In its 

briefing, it relies on subdivision (d)(1)’s protection of any 

person connected with “a newspaper, magazine, or other 

periodical publication,” see Cal. Civ. Proc. Code 

§ 425.17(d)(1); Cal. Const., Art. I § 2(b) (emphasis added), 

and subdivision (d)(2)’s protection of “any dramatic, 

literary, musical, political, or artistic work,” Cal. Civ. Proc. 

Code § 425.17(d)(2). D&B asserts that the D&B Hoovers 

database should be considered both a “periodical 

publication” and a “literary . . . work.” As both subdivisions

refer to works that involve some form of artistic or 

3 Section 425.17(d) provides, in relevant part, that subdivisions (b) and 

(c) do not apply to the following:

(1) Any person enumerated in subdivision (b) of 

Section 2 of Article I of the California Constitution or 

Section 1070 of the Evidence Code, or any person 

engaged in the dissemination of ideas or expression in 

any book or academic journal, while engaged in the 

gathering, receiving, or processing of information for 

communication to the public.

(2) Any action against any person or entity based upon 

the creation, dissemination, exhibition, advertisement, 

or other similar promotion of any dramatic, literary, 

musical, political, or artistic work, including, but not 

limited to, a motion picture or television program, or 

an article published in a newspaper or magazine of 

general circulation.

Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 425.17(d)(1)-(2).
BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC. 13

intellectual expression, D&B’s arguments are 

unpersuasive.

As an initial note, section 425.17(d) evidently does not 

apply to all works that receive First Amendment protection. 

If it did, the public interest exemption would be read out of 

existence: any work that is allowed to invoke the antiSLAPP statute in the first place could subsequently invoke 

section 425.17(d) to preclude the public interest exemption’s 

application. Instead, that section identifies a few categories 

of works so important that protecting them from suit must 

override the important policy goals furthered by the public 

interest exemption. The question is whether D&B’s database 

fits into any of those narrow categories—a question which 

turns on how one interprets the terms “periodical 

publication” and “literary.”

To assess that issue, we turn to the well-established 

canon of statutory interpretation that “words should be 

understood by the company they keep.” Microsoft Corp. v. 

Comm’r, 311 F.3d 1178, 1184 (9th Cir. 2002). Interpreting 

the term “literary” from that perspective, all the other terms 

in subdivision (d)(2)—dramatic, musical, political, 

artistic—evoke some form of expression. Similarly, in terms 

of what constitutes a “periodical publication,” the other 

examples—newspapers and magazines—involve the 

dissemination of works of expression, from opinion pieces 

to in-depth investigations. Indeed, subdivision (d)(1) 

explicitly refers to any “person engaged in the dissemination 

of ideas or expression.” Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 425.17(d)(1) 

(emphasis added). The statutory examples in each provision 

underscore the notion that both are intended to protect works 

of expression, as they highlight a “book or academic 

journal,” “a motion picture or television program,” and “an 

article published in a newspaper or magazine of general 
14 BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC.

circulation.” Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 425.17(d)(1)-(2).4 None 

of these examples gives any indication that a compendium 

of information, such as a telephone book, would be covered.

5

Both subdivisions must therefore be interpreted as referring 

to works that involve some form of expression.

Under such an interpretation, a database of professional 

contact information used to facilitate commercial 

transactions does not come within the ambit of section 

425.17(d). D&B concedes that its “profiles are short and the 

vast majority are limited to basic business contact 

information.” Publishing that basic information “in the 

context of comprehensive information about the city that 

employs [Batis]” does nothing to change the database’s 

nature— additional “information” cannot transform a 

database into a work of expression. The fact that the D&B 

Hoovers database also happens to contain some “industry 

4 Even the modifier “of general circulation” cuts against D&B’s position, 

given that the D&B Hoovers database is accessible to only a small subset 

of the population that is part of an institution that can afford a 

subscription. D&B notes legislative history stating that § 425.17(d)(2) 

also covers additional “important forms of protected speech.” Major v. 

Silna, 36 Cal. Rptr. 3d 875, 884 (Ct. App. 2005). However, the cited 

passage goes on to define such “important forms” as a “newspaper, 

magazine, or other periodical publication,” id., and therefore does 

nothing to expand the reach of the subdivision beyond its text. Indeed, 

Silna itself involved the dissemination of a letter soliciting support for a 

political candidate, id. at 877—a work of political expression that clearly 

falls within the enumerated categories of subdivision (d)(2).

5 While subdivision (d)(1) only applies to persons “while engaged in the 

gathering . . . of information,” that provision merely adds an additional 

requirement that someone invoking the subdivision must establish, in 

addition to proving that they are either a “newspaper, magazine, or other 

periodical publication” or are “engaged in the dissemination of ideas or 

expression.”
BATIS V. DUN & BRADSTREET HOLDINGS, INC. 15

news,” the dissemination of which is not challenged in this 

case, is insufficient to render it a “literary work” as a whole, 

especially when D&B has not put forward any evidence 

about whether the “industry-level information” that it 

“provides” consists of original works of reporting or articles 

compiled from external sources. 

III. Conclusion

As we conclude that Batis’s lawsuit is immune from an

anti-SLAPP motion under the public interest exemption, we 

affirm the denial of D&B’s motion to strike. Each party shall 

bear its own costs on appeal.

AFFIRMED.