Filed 1/30/20

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION EIGHT

MICHAEL JEPPSON,

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

ERIC LEY et al.,

Defendants and Appellants.

 B292166

 (Los Angeles County

 Super. Ct. No. BC684635)

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los 

Angeles County, Maureen Duffy-Lewis, Judge. Affirmed.

Paul Law Firm, Bryon P. Josselyn, and Joshua S. Paul for 

Defendants and Appellants. 

Law Offices of Barry G. Florence and Barry G. Florence; 

Law Offices of Kenneth W. Ralidis and Kenneth W. Ralidis for 

Plaintiff and Respondent. 

____________________
2

This case requires us to define the “public interest” in the 

internet age. The issue arises in an anti-SLAPP motion: a 

special motion to strike claims under Code of Civil Procedure 

section 425.16. This statute can apply if the targeted claims 

arose from “protected activity,” which the statute defines to 

include statements on an issue of “public interest.” 

Neighbors Eric Ley and Michael Jeppson are in a feud. 

Ley’s dog killed Jeppson’s cat. Aided by lawyers, Ley and 

Jeppson settled for $2,000 and a written agreement with a nondisparagement clause. But then Ley posted a hostile message on 

a neighborhood blog about Jeppson, who responded by suing Eric 

Ley and his wife for breach of contract, defamation, and 

intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Leys filed a 

special motion to strike Jeppson’s complaint under Code of Civil 

Procedure section 425.16, which the court denied. 

We affirm because Ley’s new round in this neighborhood 

quarrel raised no issue of “public interest.” Code references are 

to the Code of Civil Procedure. 

I

Jeppson and the Leys are neighbors. They live a block and 

a half from each other. After the Leys’ dog killed Jeppson’s cat, 

the Leys paid Jeppson $2,000 as part of a mutual release and 

settlement agreement. Counsel advised the parties. The 

agreement contained a “Mutual Non-Disparagement” provision. 

Bonnie Cates is another neighbor. After the Leys and 

Jeppson settled, a court granted Cates a civil harassment 

restraining order against Jeppson. Cates and her husband 

Jeffrey Otto alleged Jeppson hired men to cut through their 

fence, to trespass, and to trim their tree. Jeppson previously 

demanded Cates and Otto cut the tree because it interfered with 
3

his ocean view; he had threatened action if he did not get his way. 

They said Jeppson had intimidated them by screaming at them 

at their house. Part of the restraining order commanded Jeppson 

to dispose of guns. 

Cates told Heidi Ley about her troubles with Jeppson. 

Heidi Ley told Eric Ley, who “felt compelled” to warn the 

community to be aware of Jeppson. 

On a neighborhood website called Nextdoor.com that 

allegedly reached some 951 neighbors, Eric Ley wrote a post 

titled “Michael Jeppson’s Restraining Order.” Ley wrote under 

the pseudonym “Ken Barrett,” as follows:

“Since this is a neighborhood blog, I feel it is important to 

provide information about the case against Michael 

Jeppson for trespassing and vandalism on his neighbor’s 

property. Michael Jeppson of Raymond James Financial 

Corporation and Jeppson Wealth Management could face 

jail time for these charges. Most importantly, a restraining 

order was issued on 6/27/2017, and the courts forced 

Michael Jeppson to relinquish his gun arsenal due to the 

danger he poses to his neighbors. If interested, you can 

review the court document at lacourts.org for a one dollar 

fee. The signs in Michael Jeppson’s yard pictured below 

warn the neighborhood that he intends to solve disputes 

with gun violence, and he has stated this intent in 

countless blog posts and neighborhood fliers. Beware!” 

Ley’s post attached three photos of Jeppson’s yard signs, 

which forbade trespassing with images of guns and a bulletriddled human silhouette. 

Jeppson sued the Leys for breach of contract, defamation, 

and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Leys filed a 
4

special motion to strike under section 425.16 in response to 

Jeppson’s complaint, supported by declarations and other 

evidence. Jeppson opposed the Leys’ motion. The Leys appeal 

the trial court’s denial of their special motion to strike. 

II

The law requires affirmance.

A

We independently review rulings on special motions to 

strike. (Monster Energy Co. v. Schechter (2019) 7 Cal.5th 781, 

788.) 

B

Special motions to strike proceed in two steps. First the 

court determines whether Jeppson’s claims arose from protected 

activity. The second step is a summary-judgment-like procedure 

to determine whether a plaintiff can establish a probability of 

success for each claim. (Wilson v. Cable News Network, Inc. 

(2019) 7 Cal.5th 871, 884 (Wilson).)

The first step, decisive of this appeal, is whether the Leys 

showed Jeppson’s claims arose from “protected activity,” which 

includes “any written or oral statement or writing made in a 

place open to the public or a public forum in connection with an 

issue of public interest . . . .” (§ 425.16, subd. (e)(3), italics added.) 

Determining the “public interest” invokes the public/private 

distinction, which is one of the most malleable in all the law. 

(See Rand Resources, LLC v. City of Carson (2019) 6 Cal.5th 610, 

621 [“we have struggled with the question of what makes 

something an issue of public interest”] (Rand); cf. Horwitz, The 

History of the Public/Private Distinction (1977) 130 U. Pa. L.Rev. 

1423 [tracing history of distinction from the late medieval 

period]; see id. at p. 1426 [“By 1940, it was a sign of legal 
5

sophistication to understand the arbitrariness of the division of 

law into public and private realms”].)

We are fully aware of the plasticity of the abstract notion of 

the “public interest.” But our inquiry is not abstract. The 

Legislature wrote these two words, did not define them, and thus 

delegated the definitional job to the judiciary. Courts have been 

interpreting these statutory words for many years. The anchor of 

precedent moors us.

C

The six anchoring precedents are Rand, Rivero, Weinberg, 

Workman, Abuemeira, and FilmOn. (Rand, supra, 6 Cal.5th 610; 

Rivero v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal 

Employees, AFL–CIO (2003) 105 Cal.App.4th 913 (Rivero); 

Weinberg v. Feisel (2003) 110 Cal.App.4th 1122 (Weinberg); 

Workman v. Colichman (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th 1039 (Workman); 

Abuemeira v. Stephens (2016) 246 Cal.App.4th 1291 (Abuemeira); 

FilmOn.com Inc. v. DoubleVerify Inc. (2019) 7 Cal.5th 133 

(FilmOn).)

We assay these six precedents to decide this case.

1

The Rand decision from the Supreme Court commands our 

first attention because it stated an authoritative general rule. 

Rand involved a business dispute between stadium developer 

Richard Rand and the City of Carson about a potential football 

franchise for the city. (Rand, supra, 6 Cal.5th at pp. 616–619.) 

Rand is significant here, not because its facts are close to 

this case — they are not — but because it set forth a general 

definition of “public interest.” It did so by stating three 

qualifying categories of statements or conduct, as follows.
6

1. The first category is when the statement or conduct 

concerns a person or entity in the public eye. 

2. The second category is when the case involves 

conduct that could directly affect a large number of 

people beyond the direct participants. 

3. The third category is when the case involves a topic 

of widespread public interest. (Rand, supra, 6 Cal.5th 

at p. 621.) 

Rand quoted this three-part definition from the 2003 

Rivero case, which is the case we analyze next. (Rand, supra, 6 

Cal.5th at p. 621 [citing Rivero, supra, 105 Cal.App.4th at pp. 

919–924].) The Supreme Court’s citation and reliance endows 

Rivero with special authority, so to Rivero we turn.

2

The 2003 Rivero decision is the historic taproot of the 

guiding doctrine.

David Rivero had, for 18 years, supervised the eight 

janitors at International House on the campus of the University 

of California at Berkeley. Three of Rivero’s subordinates accused 

him of wrongdoing. Even though an investigation could not 

substantiate their accusations, Rivero still lost his job as 

supervisor. Rivero sued the janitors’ union, claiming it caused 

his termination by circulating disparaging documents about him. 

(Rivero, supra, 105 Cal.App.4th at p. 916.)

Rivero’s claims included defamation and intentional 

infliction of emotional distress. Jeppson sues on these same 

grounds in this case. Also, as in this case the defense — there, 

the union — filed a special motion to strike. The trial court 

denied the union’s special motion to strike, ruling the union’s 
7

statements about Rivero raised no issue of public interest. 

(Rivero, supra, 105 Cal.App.4th at p. 917.)

On appeal, the Rivero court affirmed. The opinion 

surveyed case law about the “public interest” and found in each 

case the challenged statements concerned either:

1. a person or entity in the public eye, 

2. conduct that could directly affect a large number of people 

beyond the direct participants, or 

3. a topic of widespread public interest. (Rivero, supra, 105 

Cal.App.4th at p. 924.)

These are the same three categories the Supreme Court 

quoted in Rand. (Rand, supra, 6 Cal.5th at p. 621.)

The phrasing of test three opened it to circularity, because 

defining the “public interest” as a “topic of widespread public 

interest” threatens to reduce the test to a tautology. But the 

Rivero decision quelled this threat with further analysis that 

deflated two union efforts to abstract the case’s narrow topic into 

a grander and more sweeping “public” issue. 

We attend carefully to these two responses in Rivero, which 

were doctrinally prescient and which affect our decision of this 

case.

The union made two invalid arguments of this kind, 

seeking to enlarge its complaints about the supervisor of eight 

janitors into broad statements about the “public interest.” 

First, the union said statements concern a public issue 

when people criticize unlawful workplace activities, because 

public policy favors such criticism. The Rivero court responded 

that, if that argument sufficed, then nearly every workplace 

dispute would qualify as a matter of public interest. But 

“unlawful workplace activity below some threshold level of 
8

significance is not an issue of public interest, even though it 

implicates a public policy.” (Rivero, supra, 105 Cal.App.4th at p. 

924.) Rivero thus rejected the union’s first effort at abstraction.

Second, the union claimed the topic was of public interest 

because Rivero worked at a publicly-financed institution. The 

court also rejected this argument because it too “sweeps too 

broadly.” Applying this argument generally, “every allegedly 

inappropriate use of public funds, no matter how minor, would 

constitute a matter of public interest. However, the theft of a 

single pencil . . . cannot amount to a public issue.” (Rivero, supra, 

105 Cal.App.4th at pp. 925–926.)

These two aspects of Rivero prefigured the Supreme Court’s 

decision in FilmOn by 16 years. We return to the substance of 

FilmOn as the sixth case in our list. For now, we simply observe 

that, like Rand, FilmOn (and also the Wilson case) cited Rivero

approvingly, thus reinforcing Rivero’s status as especially 

authoritative. (FilmOn, supra, 7 Cal.5th at pp. 149 & 150 [citing 

Rivero]; Wilson, supra, 7 Cal.5th at pp. 901 & 903 [also citing 

Rivero approvingly].)

In sum, the basic Rivero holding was that Rivero was a 

nonentity. The only people directly involved in and affected by 

the situation were Rivero and the eight custodians. Rivero’s 

supervision of those eight people was “hardly a matter of public 

interest.” (Rivero, supra, 105 Cal.App.4th at p. 924.)

3

Our third guiding precedent is Weinberg, which also is from 

2003. Weinberg extensively cited and relied upon Rivero. 

Plaintiff Weinberg and defendant Feisel were “aficionados 

of token collecting.” Both belonged to the National Token 

Collectors’ Association, which had about 700 members, and the 
9

Western States Token Society, which had about 50 members. 

(Weinberg, supra, 110 Cal.App.4th at p. 1127.) 

Feisel accused Weinberg of stealing one of Feisel’s tokens at 

a token show. Feisel confronted Weinberg, got no satisfaction, 

and began a campaign to oust Weinberg from the token collecting 

avocation. Feisel published an ad in the national association’s 

monthly newsletter, called Talkin’ Tokens, that publicized 

aspects of the situation. Then he sent letters to over 20 

collectors. Feisel also succeeded in barring Weinberg from the 

Western States Token Society Token Jamboree. Feisel continued 

to disparage Weinberg by writing to other collectors and by 

complaining to Weinberg’s fellow retired police officer that 

Weinberg had a violent temper. (Weinberg, supra, 110 

Cal.App.4th at pp. 1127–1129.)

Weinberg sued Feisel on some of the same claims as in this 

case: defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. 

Feisel filed a special motion to strike, which the trial court 

denied. The Court of Appeal affirmed.

The Weinberg decision surveyed a mass of decisions, 

including Rivero, to hold this controversy between token 

collectors was a private matter and not of public interest. The 

court stressed Feisel neither reported Weinberg to police nor sued 

him civilly. Rather, Feisel merely “began a private campaign” to 

discredit Weinberg “in the eyes of a relatively small group of 

fellow collectors.” (Weinberg, supra, 110 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1126–

1127 & 1135.) To qualify as a matter of public interest, the focus 

of the speaker’s conduct had to be more than a mere effort “to 

gather ammunition for another round” in a private spat. (Id. at 

pp. 1132–1133.)
10

The Weinberg court demanded “some degree of closeness 

between the challenged statements and the asserted public 

interest . . . [T]he assertion of a broad and amorphous public 

interest is not sufficient . . . .” (Weinberg, supra, 110 Cal.App.4th 

at p. 1132.) This aspect of Weinberg echoed Rivero’s rejection of 

public interest arguments that sweep too broadly, and likewise 

foreshadowed the Supreme Court decision in FilmOn.

As with Rivero, Weinberg has received Supreme Court 

approval. (FilmOn, supra, 7 Cal.5th at p. 149 [citing both 

Weinberg and Rivero approvingly].) 

4

Our fourth guiding case is Workman, which involved facts 

analogous to the present dispute: a fracas between neighbors.

Plaintiff Donna Sue Workman put her home up for sale, 

found a buyer, and entered escrow. Defendant Colichman and 

another were residents of a neighboring property. These 

neighbors caused Workman’s sale to fall through by telling her 

real estate agent they planned to build a house addition that 

would interfere with the sweeping views from Workman’s house. 

Workman sued these neighbors for interfering with contractual 

relations and on other claims. The neighbors filed a special 

motion to strike, which the trial court denied because the case 

was “a private matter; not a public issue or an issue of public 

interest.” The Court of Appeal affirmed. (Workman, supra, 33 

Cal.App.5th at pp. 1042–1048.)

The Workman decision held that information about the 

views from a private residence is not an issue of public interest 

when the information affects only those directly interested in 

buying or selling the house. (Workman, supra, 33 Cal.App.5th at 

p. 1042.) 
11

Workman relied on Weinberg. (Workman, supra, 33 

Cal.App.5th at pp. 1048–1050.) 

The Workman court said Weinberg was like the Workman 

case in that both were instances of “limited communications to 

small groups of interested people.” (Workman, supra, 33 

Cal.App.5th at p. 1052.) “The views from a private residence do 

not involve a matter of public concern.” (Id. at p. 1053.) 

Workman echoed a familiar theme by deflating defendant’s 

efforts to magnify a neighborhood dispute into something of large 

social significance. Defendants claimed the suit was about a 

public interest in attacking the “fraudulent practices of a real 

estate broker in marketing real property to the public.” The 

court’s response was curt: “This contention vastly overstates the 

issue in this case.” (Workman, supra, 33 Cal.App.5th at p. 1048.) 

Workman basically held there was no public interest in 

squabbles between neighbors.

5

The fifth guiding precedent is Abuemeira, which was also 

about fighting neighbors. This fight was violent, but in principle 

the case was the same as Workman.

Yasser Abuemeira drove his motorcycle inside his gated 

community. Then there was some sort of road rage. A man got 

out of his car and told Abuemeira he was a superlawyer. What 

happened next was hotly disputed, but these two neighbors 

resorted to atrocious slurs and fisticuffs. The superlawyer began 

to videotape the affray and then showed his video at homeowners 

association meetings and to police and reporters. He created an 

online petition demanding the Attorney General investigate the 

incident. When Abuemeira sued him, the superlawyer filed a 

special motion to strike. The trial court denied this motion on the 
12

ground that the superlawyer’s efforts to publicize a dispute 

between private people did not transform the dispute into an 

issue of public interest. (Abuemeira, supra, 246 Cal.App.4th at 

pp. 1294–1298.)

Abuemeira affirmed. Citing Weinberg, the court ruled a 

“video recording of an unseemly private brawl, no matter how 

wide its distribution, is far removed from a citizen's 

constitutional right of petition or free speech involving a public 

issue.” (Abuemeira, supra, 246 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1294 & 1298.) 

The fight involved “private, anonymous” parties and was nothing 

but a private dispute. (Id. at p. 1298.) Quoting Weinberg, the 

Abuemeira court wrote there is no public interest if the speaker’s 

conduct is merely an effort “to gather ammunition for another 

round” in some private controversy. (Ibid.)

As in Workman, the holding in Abuemeira is that a 

neighborhood row is not a matter of public interest.

6

The sixth and final guiding precedent is FilmOn. This 

recent Supreme Court case was not factually close to our case: 

there were no feuding neighbors. Rather, an internet provider 

sued an internet authentication company. FilmOn nonetheless is 

significant for two reasons. The first is straightforward; the 

second is more complex. 

First, FilmOn shows pre-internet rules do not change just 

because a case now involves the internet. This point is 

straightforward. 

Second, the Supreme Court in FilmOn relied on Rivero and 

Weinberg to reject public interest arguments that sweep too 

broadly. We carefully study this second and more complex point.
13

FilmOn condemned public interest arguments “too 

tenuously tethered to the issues of public interest they implicate, 

and too remotely connected to the public conversation about those 

issues,” to merit protection. (FilmOn, supra, 7 Cal.5th at p. 140.) 

The court observed the recurring effort “to discern what the 

challenged speech is really ‘about’—a narrow, largely private 

dispute, for example, or the asserted issue of public interest.” (Id. 

at p. 149.) FilmOn reiterated Weinberg’s requirement there be 

“some degree of closeness” between the challenged statements 

and the asserted public interest. (Id. at p. 150.) For that reason, 

that “a broad and amorphous public interest” can be connected to 

a specific dispute is not enough. (Ibid.) The proper focus of the 

inquiry instead must be on “the specific nature of the speech,” not 

on “generalities that might be abstracted from it.” (Id. at p. 152.) 

We follow that guidance in this case.

D

These six precedents show there was no public interest in 

Ley’s internet post about Jeppson. 

Neither Ley nor Jeppson were in the public eye. 

None of their acts directly affected a large number of people 

beyond the three households. Ley claimed the mantle of town 

crier, but the conduct had directly involved only dog owner Ley, 

cat owner Jeppson, and tree owner Cates. 

Despite the medium of the internet, the topic was not of 

widespread public interest. There is no issue of public interest 

when the speaker’s words are merely an effort to gather 

ammunition for another round in the speaker’s neighborhood 

wrangle.

Ley and Jeppson had a history of personal conflict when 

Ley decided to upload to the internet about Jeppson. Like the 
14

union in Rivero, like the token collector in Weinberg, like the 

house seller in Workman, and like the superlawyer in Abuemeira, 

Ley sought to endow his statements with lofty justifications. But 

the matter boiled down to Ley’s interest in gathering ammunition 

for another round in his clash with Jeppson. Ley’s internet post 

merely manifested, and remained, his altercation with his 

neighbor.

Ley seeks to exalt his latest blast in the fray by making 

three points: the website claimed a potential audience of 951; 

Jeppson had been the target of an official court restraining order; 

and Ley’s post invoked public safety. 

As we have seen, cases over the years have deflated such 

attempts at abstraction, which are typical fare. The same 

principle holds here. The website had a potential audience of 

951, but there is no evidence anyone actually read or cared about 

Ley’s post. There was a restraining order on Jeppson that barred 

him from harassing his tree-owning neighbor Cates. Ley 

proclaimed Jeppson a threat to public safety, but this involved 

Jeppson trimming Cates’s tree without her permission and 

Jeppson putting “no trespassing” signs in his yard. Jeppson 

owned guns, but the restraining order blocked Jeppson’s access to 

them. 

Ley’s arguments are “too tenuously tethered to the issues of 

public interest they implicate, and too remotely connected to the 

public conversation about those issues, to merit protection . . . ” 

(FilmOn, supra, 7 Cal.5th at p. 140.) 

Under the case law, this neighborhood flap did not raise 

issues about the “public interest,” even though it made an 

appearance on the internet.
15

E

We distinguish the decision in Traditional Cat Assn., Inc. v. 

Gilbreath (2004) 118 Cal.App.4th 392, 397 (Traditional Cat). 

That case involved two competing and confusingly named 

associations, the “Traditional Cat Association” and “The 

Traditional Cat Association, Inc.” The decision gave no 

information about the size of these associations. The decision 

called these associations “TCA” and “TTCA.” We follow this 

usage. 

A director and officer of TCA set up a website critical of 

TTCA and supportive of TCA. TTCA fought back by suing TCA 

and others about the website. TCA filed a special motion to 

strike, which the trial court denied. The Traditional Cat decision 

reversed this ruling. Traditional Cat held that, “[g]iven the 

controversy surrounding the parties’ dispute and its evident 

notoriety in the cat breeding community, the Web site statements 

concerned matters of public interest in the cat breeding 

community.” (Traditional Cat, supra, 118 Cal.App.4th at p. 397, 

italics added.)

The 2004 Traditional Cat decision cited none of the six 

precedents guiding us today. Four of those precedents were 

decided after 2004, so that learning was simply unavailable in 

2004. In any event, Traditional Cat concerned two organizations 

and an online public of some indeterminate magnitude. It was 

not like this case.

Feuds can metastasize into the Hatfields and McCoys or 

the Montagues and Capulets. This tiff, though bitter, remained 

strictly local: a private affair and not a matter of “public 

interest.”
16

DISPOSITION

The order is affirmed. Costs to Jeppson.

WILEY, J.

We concur: 

BIGELOW, P. J. 

STRATTON, J.