Grijalva v. Brandt [1]

Grijalva and Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students (CSFES), a website which reports fraud and abuse committed against foreign exchange students, filed a lawsuit against ASSE International, Inc. (ASSE); Helga Brandt; and Josef Motycka, claiming defamation and unfair business practices for allegedly sending emails critical of CSFES to the parents of foreign exchange students.

Plantiffs alleged in their complaint that "ASSE . . . set out to malign CSFES  and . . . Grijalva with an intentional and false campaign directed to the parents of students. . . ." Opinion [2] at 4. Grijalva asserted that in its email campaign againts her, ASSE falsely accused her of the following:

• "conducting her website and agency with a 'commercial purpose'"
• "'manipulating facts'"
• "'not portraying a clear picture'"
• "'isn't interested in the welfare of the students'"
• "'threatening' to send information on exchange agencies but 'if got [sic] a contribution doesn't send anything,'"
• "'represent[ing] herself as a federal agent,'"
• "'performs background checks,'"
• "[b]eing a 'liar,'" and
• "[m]aking 'false statements'[.]'"

Id. [2] 

ASSE and Brandt filed an anti-SLAPP motion seeking to dismiss the complaint. In the motion, ASSE and Brandt claimed that plaintiffs' lawsuit was filed in retaliation for ASSE's participating in a separate lawsuit [3] against Grijalva then pending in North Carolina. The trial judge granted defendants' motion. Plaintiffs appealed. The appeals court reversed [2] the trial judge's ruling and remanded the case to San Diego Superior Court. 

The grounds for reversal was that ASSE's and Brandt's allegations that plaintiffs filed the lawsuit a "mere one month" after ASSE intervened in the North Carolina suit was not sufficient to demonstrate that plaintiffs' claims arose from ASSE's participation in the suit.  The court further found that ASSE's and Brandt's claim that the lawsuit was filed in retaliation for ASSE's participation in the North Carolina suit was irrelevant to application of the anti-SLAPP statute. The court held that a complaint filed with a retaliatory motive was not barred by the anti-SLAPP statute, so long as the claims in the complaint arose from statements or conduct independent of ASSE's participation in the North Carolina litigation.