In Newport Harbor Ventures, LLC v. Morris Cerullo World Evangelism, the Supreme Court today restricts when defendants can file motions to strike claims that threaten certain constitutional rights. Finding California’s anti-SLAPP statute — under which those motions are made — was not intended “to permit the abuse that delayed motions to strike might entail,” the court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Ming Chin holds the filing of an amended complaint does not necessarily subject the entire new complaint to an anti-SLAPP motion. Rather, construing the statute’s time provision, the court concludes, “a defendant must move to strike a cause of action within 60 days of service of the earliest complaint that contains that cause of action.”
The court affirms the Fourth District, Division Three, Court of Appeal. It also disapproves a 2002 opinion by the First District, Division Four, and speaks well of dictum in a 2015 Sixth District decision.
