An animal rights group failed in a move to use California’s anti-SLAPP statute to quash a lawsuit against them by Golden Gate Fields who claimed they invaded the track in March of 2021 to block the horses from running. A California appeals court ruled that anti-SLAPP did not apply in this case in that the Golden Gate Fields lawsuit addressed the trespass and its economic harm and not the petitioning. (Reason, July 13, 2022, by Eugene Volokh)
FAC’s David Loy said that the ruling would have an adverse effect on the exercise of free speech possibly in application to newspapers who could be held liable for destruction during a protest by the mere act of sending a photographer to the scene. (Local Today, July 15, 2022, by Bob Egelko of the San Francisco Chronicle)