Anti-SLAPP Happy? Arizona Court Of Appeals Extends Anti-SLAPP Statute To Statements Made In Informal Community Meetings

• Published date: 28 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Trials & Appeals & Compensation, Libel & Defamation
• Law Firm: Snell & Wilmer
• Author: Ryan Hogan and Brett W. Johnson

SLAPP Suits and Anti-SLAPP Statutes

Controversial and heated business dealings with or involving public entities are all too familiar: A developer or other business seeks to pursue a project or to obtain public funding and, in response, local individuals or organizations emerge to oppose such ambitions. Opponents will communicate with local officials or law enforcement, advocate at hearings for development or public funding approval, or even take to the streets in protest. Political opposition can sometimes be strong enough to provoke a defamation lawsuit. Traditionally, if an entity believes that falsehoods have damaged its reputation, it may have grounds for legal recovery, injunction against continued defamation, or even "take down" actions by third party publishers.

Both sides in cases like these should be aware of Arizona's anti-strategic lawsuits against public participation ("anti-SLAPP") statutes,¹ which provide an expedited mechanism to dismiss complaints based on public participation in governmental proceedings. Broadly, anti-SLAPP statutes seek to level the playing field between local advocates and powerful interests who might have the financial resources to stymy public opposition by subjecting opponents to broad and expensive discovery.²

Arizona Anti-SLAPP: Nuts and Bolts

The central feature of Arizona's Anti-SLAPP statute is the mandatory dismissal of any legal action involving certain types of speech unless the non-moving party "shows that the moving party's exercise of the right of petition did not contain any reasonable factual support or any arguable basis in law and that the moving party's acts caused actual compensable injury to the responding party."³ Put simply, if you cannot prove the merit of a lawsuit involving another's right of petition, the anti-SLAPP statute will bring a swift end to your case.

The statute also increases the stakes for claimants. By requiring an expedited hearing, the statute leaves little time for discovery.⁴ That may frustrate entities' efforts to prove the merits of their claim. Serious consequences may follow: the statute requires an award of reasonable attorney fees and encourages successful defendants to seek sanctions.⁵

As a result, potential litigants should take note of what speech the anti-SLAPP statute covers. To begin with, the statute protects only constitutionally protected free speech, meaning certain "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech"-including defamation- cannot benefit...