Court Opinion

ID: 9835247
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 02:15:39.468495+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:00.149925
License: Public Domain

GOULD, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I join the per curiam opinion. I also concur in Judge Kozinski’s separate concurrence taking issue with circuit precedent permitting defendants in federal court to take advantage of California’s anti-SLAPP law. Although I previously joined in part the Batzel precedent that is challenged by Judge Kozinski, and my partial dissent did not disagree on the majority’s application there of collateral order doctrine to permit appeal of denial of anti-SLAPP motion, I am now persuaded by Judge Kozinski’s reasoning, as well as that of the D.C. Circuit in Abbas v. Foreign Policy Grp., LLC, 783 F.3d 1328, 1333-37
(D.C. Cir. 2015), that an anti-SLAPP motion has no proper place in federal court in light of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and also that the collateral order doctrine does not provide a good fit for immediate appeal of denial of anti-SLAPP motions. Having recognized that there was error in the position that I previously joined, I recede from it.