Opinion ID: 6324277
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether the Petition Clause extends to

Text: Defendants’ conduct Assuming Defendants are state actors, our precedent compels the conclusion that their activities were protected by the Petition Clause. In Manistee, we held that the Petition Clause protected lobbying efforts by government actors—a city and its officials. Id. at 1093. We reasoned that applying Noerr-Pennington to government actors was “consistent with [the] ‘representative democracy’ rationale” for the doctrine, as government “petitioning may be nearly as vital to the functioning of a modern representative democracy as petitioning that originates with private citizens.” Id. In Kearney, we extended Manistee to litigation activities by government actors and their attorneys by holding that conduct related to an eminent domain suit, which allegedly violated § 1983, was protected petitioning. 590 F.3d at 644– 45. We found that “[t]here is no reason . . . to limit Manistee’s holding to lobbying efforts,” id. at 644, and that the representative democracy rationale applied equally to lawsuits like eminent domain proceedings in which “a governmental entity acts on behalf of the public it represents . . . [in] seek[ing] to take private property and convert it to public use.” Id. at 645. Defendants’ activities seek to enforce Prop. 65, an initiative adopted by California voters to protect the public from harmful chemicals. See AFL-CIO v. Deukmejian, 260 Cal. Rptr. 479, 479 (Ct. App. 1989). Thus, Defendants’ conduct falls squarely within the conduct that we held was protected in Kearney—litigation activities brought by government officials to advance public goals. See Kearney, 590 F.3d at 644–45. Defendants’ conduct is therefore protected by the Petition Clause. 14 B&G FOODS N. AMERICA V. EMBRY B&G’s attempts to distinguish Kearney are unconvincing. B&G argues that Kearney’s extension of Manistee to litigation by government officials is non-binding dicta because, in Kearney, we ultimately found NoerrPennington inapplicable under the sham exception. But in reaching our ultimate holding in Kearney, we applied our three-part test. See id. at 644. Thus, before determining whether the sham exception applied, we first determined that defendants’ activities amounted to protected petitioning activities. See id. at 646. In doing so, we engaged in a detailed analysis that included analyzing our rationale and holding in Manistee, finding that Manistee should be extended to litigation activities, and analyzing whether defendants’ conduct was protected petitioning. See id. at 644–46. Our extension of Manistee was therefore not dicta, as whether defendants’ conduct was protected petitioning under Manistee bore directly on Noerr-Pennington’s applicability, and we resolved the issue after considered analysis. See United States v. McAdory, 935 F.3d 838, 843 (9th Cir. 2019) (“[W]here a panel confronts an issue germane to the eventual resolution of the case, and resolves it after reasoned consideration in a published opinion, that ruling becomes the law of the circuit, regardless of whether doing so is necessary in some strict logical sense.” (alteration in original) (quoting Cetacean Cmty. v. Bush, 386 F.3d 1169, 1173 (9th Cir. 2004))). B&G argues that Kearney is relevant only when government officials and their agents file eminent domain proceedings. But nothing in Kearney suggests such a limited holding. Indeed, in determining that Manistee should be extended to conduct beyond lobbying, we reasoned that Manistee’s rationale applied equally to “lawsuits” brought by government actors. Kearney, 590 F.3d at 644 (“In a representative democracy, . . . branches of government often B&G FOODS N. AMERICA V. EMBRY 15 ‘act on behalf of the people’ and ‘intercede’ to ‘advance their constituents’ goals, both expressed and perceived.’ Such intercession is just as likely to be accomplished through lawsuits—the very act of petitioning—as through lobbying.” (citation omitted) (quoting Manistee, 227 F.3d at 1093)). And we did not distinguish between eminent domain proceedings and other types of lawsuits. We therefore reject B&G’s narrow view of Kearney. Finally, according to B&G, Kearney involved “intergovernmental petitioning” by a municipal official to a state court. Thus, it argues that Kearney is distinguishable, because here, state officials have petitioned a state court and so there is no protected “intergovernmental petitioning.” We are unpersuaded. Nothing in Kearney suggests that our holding extending Noerr-Pennington immunity to governmental entities and officials depended on whether it was a state or municipal official who had engaged in the petitioning activity. Moreover, why should it matter? “[A] city is a political subdivision of the state, created as a convenient agency for the exercise of such of the governmental powers of the state as may be intrusted to it.” City of Trenton v. New Jersey, 262 U.S. 182, 185–86 (1923). We see no reason why Noerr-Pennington applicability should turn on whether the petitioner is an official of a state or one of its political subdivisions. In short, under our precedent, Defendants’ prelitigation communications and suit to enforce Prop. 65 are protected by the Petition Clause.