Court Opinion

ID: 9749028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:21:36.342878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:42.613075
License: Public Domain

RUBIN, J.
I concur.
The plain meanings of Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16, subdivision (i) (formerly subd. (j)) and section 904.1, subdivision (a)(13) made the trial court’s order granting respondent’s motion to strike immediately appealable. I therefore agree with the majority that, because the appeal here was untimely, we do not have jurisdiction to reach the merits of the *663anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) order. Our inability to address the merits may be an example of an unintended consequence that the Legislature did not anticipate when it made granting a motion to strike under the anti-SLAPP law an immediately appealable order. I therefore write this separate concurrence to suggest that the Legislature may wish to consider amending the statutes involving such an appeal.
It makes sense that denial of a motion to strike a complaint under the anti-SLAPP law is immediately appealable. Forcing a defendant to wait until a final judgment that might be months or years away arguably would frustrate the anti-SLAPP statute’s purpose, which is to expeditiously end lawsuits that chill public participation. (Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Delfino (2005) 35 Cal.4th 180, 194 [25 Cal.Rptr.3d 298, 106 P.3d 958] [“The Legislature found it necessary to enact subdivision (j) because, without the ability to appeal, a SLAPP ‘defendant will have to incur the cost of a lawsuit before having his or her right to free speech vindicated’ ”].) As the Assembly committee report discussing appeals under the anti-SLAPP statute noted: “This bill furthers the purpose of the Anti-SLAPP Law ... by allowing the defendant to immediately appeal a denial of a special motion to strike. Without this ability, a defendant will have to incur the cost of a lawsuit before having his or her right to free speech vindicated. When a meritorious anti-SLAPP motion is denied, the defendant, under current law, has only two options. The first is to file a writ of [mandate], which is discretionary and rarely granted. The second is to defend the lawsuit. If the defendant wins, the Anti-SLAPP Law is useless and has failed to protect the defendant’s constitutional rights.” (Assem. Com. on Judiciary, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 1675 (1999-2000 Reg. Sess.) Apr. 20, 1999, pp. 2-3.)
A plaintiff in SLAPP litigation occupies a different position than a defendant, and few plaintiffs, if any, are likely to have interests the anti-SLAPP law was designed to protect. Recall that the plaintiff initiates the lawsuit—it is the defendant who claims the lawsuit chills the defendant’s constitutional rights. There is no particular reason a plaintiff at the losing end of a successful anti-SLAPP motion to strike has any interests greater or more pressing than any other plaintiff who loses a dispositive pretrial motion, such as a demurrer or motion for summary adjudication or judgment. The plaintiff may be unhappy with the pretrial result, but, unlike a defendant subject to a SLAPP complaint, such a plaintiff bears no obviously greater burden in being forced like other plaintiffs to wait until the final judgment to appeal.
The legislative history of the appeal provision of the anti-SLAPP law does not illuminate why the Legislature made orders granting a motion to strike immediately appealable, other perhaps than to offer balance between plaintiffs and defendants. As originally introduced in the Assembly Judiciary Committee, the appeal provision addressed only denial of a motion to strike. (Assem.
*664Bill No. 1675, subd. (j) (1999-2000 Reg. Sess.); Stats. 1999, ch. 960.) But several months later, the Senate Judiciary Committee amended the bill to make an order granting a motion to strike appealable. In discussing its amendment, the Senate report recited the reasons the Assembly had found for making denials immediately appealable. The Senate report then added; “The author is submitting amendments in Committee to clarify that the right to appeal would apply to motions granted or denied in order to assure that both the plaintiff and defendant are given equal rights to appeal an adverse order”—in other words, balance. (Sen. Com. on Judiciary, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 1675 (1999-2000 Reg. Sess.) as amended May 28, 1999, p. 4.)
In reaching for balance, the Legislature may have grabbed hold of unintended consequences, instead. One of two scenarios typically unfolds after a trial court grants an anti-SLAPP motion to strike. Under the first scenario, the court dismisses the entire complaint, freeing the defendant to move for its attorney’s fees and an eventual final judgment; that scenario is the one that happened here. Under the second scenario, some causes of action remain and the case proceeds on those claims toward an eventual final judgment (which may include attorney’s fees for the successful motion to strike). Under either scenario, no public policy reason exists to justify the cost to the parties and the courts of two separate appeals—one from the granting of the motion to strike, and a second from the attorney’s fee order and final judgment. Moreover, splitting the proceedings into two appeals creates a trap for the unwary, who may lose their right to appeal from the order granting the motion to strike while they await the final judgment. This is especially true in cases in which the trial court, as what happened here, grants the motion to strike the entire complaint. It is hard to imagine any benefit to the plaintiff in requiring it to appeal before final judgment is entitled.
And the trap is not limited to the unwary. At least one published decision shows even highly regarded and experienced counsel can overlook that an order granting a motion to strike is immediately appealable. In that decision, Maughan v. Google Technology, Inc. (2006) 143 Cal.App.4th 1242 [49 Cal.Rptr.3d 861], the plaintiff’s counsel sued Google. The trial court granted Google’s motion to strike the complaint under the anti-SLAPP statute, effectively ending the lawsuit. (Id. at p. 1245.) A few months later, the trial court awarded Google its attorney’s fees and costs and entered judgment in its favor. The plaintiff appealed from the final judgment. On review, the appellate court found the appeal was untimely as to the motion to strike, and refused to address the merits of the order granting the motion. (Id. at pp. 1246-1247.) Because the statutory language was plain, the Maughan *665court, like the majority here, correctly applied the law governing the timing of an appeal from an order granting a motion to strike a SLAPP complaint. I respectfully suggest, however, that the Legislature consider changing the statute.
A petition for a rehearing was denied March 26, 2008.