Opinion ID: 3051078
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Elements of Malice and Probable Cause

Text: “The ‘malice’ element of the malicious prosecution tort relates to the subjective intent or purpose with which the defendant acted in initiating the prior action. . . .” Sheldon Appel Co. v. Albert & Oliker, 765 P.2d 498, 503 (Cal. 1989). In Sierra Club Found. v. Graham, 85 Cal. Rptr. 2d 726 (Ct. App. 1999), the California Court of Appeal explained: [M]alice is present when proceedings are instituted primarily for an improper purpose. Suits with the hallmark of an improper purpose are those in which: (1) the person initiating them does not believe that his claim may be held valid; (2) the proceedings are begun primarily because of hostility or ill will; (3) the proceedings are initiated solely for the purpose of depriving the person against whom they are initiated of a beneficial use of his property; (4) the proceed- 9 Nor need we revisit whether Mrs. Tucker suffered damages as a result of the underlying litigation because we determined that there were such damages in Tucker v. Kenner, 85 F. App’x 610 (9th Cir. Jan. 14, 2004) (unpublished). ESTATE OF TUCKER v. INTERSCOPE RECORDS 1805 ings are initiated for the purpose of forcing a settlement which has no relation to the merits of the claim. Id. at 739-40 (internal quotation marks, citation, and alteration omitted). Malice is usually a question of fact for the jury to determine. See Sheldon Appel Co., 765 P.2d at 503. Summary judgment on the basis of lack of malice is nonetheless appropriate when there is no evidence from which a reasonable fact finder could conclude that the defendant pursued the underlying action with malice. See Ghebreselassie v. Coleman Sec. Serv., 829 F.2d 892, 899 (9th Cir. 1987) (affirming summary judgment dismissal of malicious prosecution claim under California law when plaintiff could “point to no evidence from which a fact-finder could reasonably infer that the investigators or the employer lacked probable cause or that they acted with malice”). Probable cause, in contrast, is a question of law that turns on whether the underlying claim was “legally tenable, as determined on an objective basis.” Padres L.P. v. Henderson, 8 Cal. Rptr. 3d 584, 600 (Ct. App. 2004). Whereas the element of malice focuses on the defendant’s state of mind at the time he initiated the underlying litigation, probable cause: “is measured by the state of the defendant’s knowledge, not by his intent. . . . [T]he standard applied to defendant’s consciousness is external to it. The question is not whether he thought the facts to constitute probable cause, but whether the court thinks they did.” Sheldon Appel Co., 765 P.2d at 508 (quoting Dir. Gen. v. Kastenbaum, 263 U.S. 25, 27-28 (1923)) (emphasis in Sheldon Appel Co.). [2] The elements of malice and probable cause therefore require different showings. The probable cause inquiry is 1806 ESTATE OF TUCKER v. INTERSCOPE RECORDS objective, asking whether a reasonable person would have thought that the claim was legally tenable “without regard to [her] mental state.” Roberts v. Sentry Life Ins., 90 Cal. Rptr. 2d 408, 412 (Ct. App. 1999). The only potential factual issue for purposes of probable cause is “the state of the defendant’s knowledge” at the time she initiated the underlying lawsuit. Sheldon Appel Co., 765 P.2d at 507.10 “[W]hen the state of the defendant’s factual knowledge is resolved or undisputed, it is the court which decides whether such facts constitute probable cause or not.” Id. at 508.11 [3] Malice, on the other hand, is shown through evidence of “the subjective mental state of the defendant in instituting the prior action.” Downey Venture v. LMI Ins. Co., 78 Cal. Rptr. 2d 142, 152 (Ct. App. 1998) (internal quotation marks omitted). Because the objective reasonableness of the underlying lawsuit is separate from a defendant’s subjective mental state in bringing it, by itself, the conclusion that probable cause is absent logically tells the trier of fact nothing about the defendant’s subjective state of mind. . . . [T]he presence of malice must be established by other, addi- tional evidence. . . . [T]hat evidence must include proof of either actual hostility or ill will on the part 10 The California Supreme Court explained in Sheldon Appel Co. that “when . . . there is evidence that the defendant may have known that the factual allegations on which his action depended were untrue, the jury must determine what facts the defendant knew” before the court can determine the existence of probable cause as a matter of law. Id. at 508. 11 See also id. at 506 (“the probable cause element calls on the trial court to make an objective determination of the ‘reasonableness’ of the defendant’s conduct, i.e., to determine whether, on the basis of the facts known to the defendant, the institution of the prior action was legally tenable. The resolution of that question of law calls for the application of an objective standard to the facts on which the defendant acted.”) (rejecting Tool Research & Eng’g Corp. v. Henigson, 120 Cal. Rptr. 291 (Ct. App. 1975)). ESTATE OF TUCKER v. INTERSCOPE RECORDS 1807 of the defendant . . . to deliberately misuse the legal system for personal gain or satisfaction at the expense of the wrongfully sued defendant. Id. at 153-54 (citations and footnote omitted) (emphasis added); see also Grindle v. Lorbeer, 242 Cal. Rptr. 562, 565 (Ct. App. 1987) (“[I]n a given case, unreasonable behavior which could lead to a determination that there was a lack of probable cause to file, might not provide a sufficient basis to infer malice.” (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted)). [4] As recently as 2002 the California Court of Appeal has emphasized that where malice must be shown, only “other, additional evidence” apart from a lack of probable cause, is sufficient. Swat-Fame, Inc. v. Goldstein, 101 Cal. App. 4th 613, 634 (2002) (citing Downey Venture, 66 Cal.App.4th at 498), disapproved on other grounds by Zamos v. Stroud. In Swat-Fame, that additional evidence was the deposition testimony of defendant Goldstein. In her testimony Goldstein admitted as true facts that she had alleged were false in her recently-filed complaint against Swat-Fame. When her complaint was dismissed, Swat-Fame brought suit for malicious prosecution. The court of appeal determined that the discord between Goldstein’s two accounts, as well as her settlement tactics in the earlier litigation raised a material issue as to whether she “knowingly [brought] an action without probable cause.” Id. Swat-Fame confirms our understanding of California law that the two elements—probable cause and malice— are not only distinct but that “a lack of probable cause, standing alone, does not support an inference of malice.” Id.12 12 To the contrary, the dissent’s use of Swat-Fame to insist that a knowing lack of probable cause can be inferred from a mere lack of probable cause is unfounded. Such an argument—as where the dissent argues that the absence of an actual breach of contract (objective evidence of probable cause) “could allow a jury to infer that Kenner knowingly brought [the claim] without probable cause”—both contradicts the plain facts of that 1808 ESTATE OF TUCKER v. INTERSCOPE RECORDS For the reasons that follow, we conclude that—save for the abuse of process claim filed by David Kenner—the Tuckers’ evidence did not create a triable issue of fact whether the Interscope or Kenner Defendants acted with malice in pursuing Interscope v. Tucker and Death Row v. Tucker. Although the Tuckers have not attempted to differentiate their evidence of malice as it relates to Interscope and Death Row as parties in the underlying litigation and to Ortner, Kenner, Thomas, and Paul Hastings as attorneys for the parties, we note that a party’s malfeasance in initiating a lawsuit is not imputable to counsel. See Zeavin v. Lee, 186 Cal. Rptr. 545, 548 (Ct. App. 1982). Nor are claims related to continuing such a lawsuit interchangeable for parties and attorneys.13 We therefore separately consider the two groups of defendants. case and effectuates an end-run around the very distinction central to Swat-Fame’s analysis. See Dissent at 1834, 1839; see also Dissent at 1835 (lack of probable cause for racketeering claim evinces “hate-filled malignancy”); Dissent at 1833 (Kenner lacking probable cause for abuse of process claim would allow the jury to infer not only that Death Row lacked probable cause but also that such a circumstance could lead a jury to infer that both Kenner and Death Row held “knowing assertion[s]” of malice (emphasis added)). We respectfully disagree with the dissent’s characterization of Swat-Fame. 13 The dissent overlooks this crucial distinction and therefore misreads Zamos v. Stroud. The dissent offers Zamos for the proposition that “malice in continuing a lawsuit is as actionable as malice in originating it.” Dissent at 1837. But the dissent overlooks that the holding in Zamos did not concern the post-filing conduct of the parties. Rather, Zamos held that an attorney who continues to prosecute a suit that he knows is without basis is liable for malicious prosecution where “any reasonable attorney would agree [that the case is] totally and completely without merit” as a matter of law. Zamos, 87 P.3d at 810. This holding is narrow. Weighing the effect of newly acquired evidence on the continued prosecution of a lawsuit is a matter peculiarly within the knowledge and competence of an attorney. It is difficult, therefore, to see how Zamos says anything about how the court should view Death Row’s role with respect to the ad in The Source or Tupac’s lyrics, or how Zamos stands for the general proposition that “malice in continuing a lawsuit is as actionable as malice in originating it.” ESTATE OF TUCKER v. INTERSCOPE RECORDS 1809