Anti-SLAPP statutes allow defendants who are sued based on their speech on matters of public concern to quickly challenge the sufficiency of plaintiffs' claims. They are important tools in fighting legally meritless libel suits and other attempts to restrict legally protected speech. But they only apply to claims that are indeed based on such speech, and not claims that are based on non-speech conduct.

A short excerpt from yesterday's long opinion by California Court of Appeal Justice Allison Danner, joined by Justices Mary Greenwood and Daniel Bromberg, in Khalil v. Steiner , applies this distinction. The plaintiffs—a young woman, her apparently 13-year-old sister, and their sister-in-law—"constructed a 'Free Palestine' sign out of shrubs and seaweed on a sand dune near Sand City known a

See Full Page