SAN DIEGO – The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Appellate District on Mar. 20 reversed a judgement of the San Diego Superior Court and granted defendants an anti-SLAPP motion, designed to protect against a plaintiff using a court to intimidate First Amendment freedom-of-speech rights.
“We conclude the trial court erred in determining that the plaintiffs have demonstrated a probability of prevailing on the merits of their claims,” the court opinion stated. “We therefore reverse the trial court's order and remand the matter with directions to enter an order granting the Project CBD defendants' anti-SLAPP motion.”
Titled “Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation,” SLAPP is intended to prevent the censoring, intimidating or silencing of critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense, until they abandon their criticism or opposition.
The plaintiffs, Medical Marijuana Inc. (MMI) and HempMeds, sued the defendant, Project CBD, in January 2015.
This case arose from the publication of an article regarding the safety of cannabidiol (CBD), a marijuana-related oil product called Real Scientific Hemp Oil (RSHO).
The product was sold by the plaintiffs, MMI and HempMeds PX.
The plaintiffs contended that the article published by the defendants contained false information about RSHO and that the defendants published the false information on their website titled ProjectCBD.com.
Martin Lee, founder of the ProjectCBD.com website, and Aaron Miguel Cantu, author of the article, are the Project CBD defendants.
The plaintiffs’ complaint accused the pair of libel, false light and unfair competition due to their publication of the article.
The Superior Court denied the defendants’ special motion to strike three causes of action asserted in a second amended complaint. The defendants appealed the decision, arguing that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate a probability of prevailing on their case.
The plaintiffs alleged the defendants had engaged in inaccurate testing to malign the marijuana oil product, saying that it was contaminated with heavy metals.
“The Project CBD defendants filed an anti-SLAPP motion, seeking to strike the claims asserted against them,” the brief said. “In support of their contention that the plaintiffs were unable to demonstrate a probability of prevailing on their claims.”
On August 3, 2018, the trial court denied the Project CBD defendants' anti-SLAPP motion.
The defendants appealed.
“We conclude the plaintiffs cannot demonstrate a probability of prevailing on their libel claims because the plaintiffs have not demonstrated they can establish the purportedly defamatory statements set forth in the libel cause of action are false,” the court determined.
The court added that the context of the alleged defamatory web article made it clear there were contradictory lab results, some of which demonstrated the existence of problematic ingredients in the marijuana oil and some of which did not.
“The plaintiffs do not argue on appeal nor did they argue in the trial court that statements in the article regarding test results demonstrating the RSHO sample contained high levels of several heavy metals were false,” the brief read.
The Appeals Court reversed the Superior Court decision and ordered the court to grant the defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion in its entirety.