Area 51 Productions v. City of Alameda

A plaintiff's cause of action against a city for reneging on a long-standing arrangement to license an area for the plaintiff to hold private events does not arise from a protected activity for purposes of the anti-SLAPP statute. While conduct alleged to constitute breach of contract may qualify as constitutionally protected speech or petitioning, communicative acts that are merely collateral to a claim or evidence that may be probative of a breach do not qualify as protected speech. The anti-SLAPP statute can apply to the expressive conduct of individual representatives of a government body who are being sued for actions they took on behalf of that government body. Under Code of Civil Procedure Sec. 425.16(e)(2), the pendency of an issue before a government body is a proxy for its character as public in nature.

Area 51 Productions v. City of Alameda - filed Feb. 20, 2018, First District, Div. Four
Cite as 2018 S.O.S. 826

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