In Bonni v. St. Joseph Health System, the Supreme Court today holds that the anti-SLAPP statute, which allows for an early screening of claims that could chill constitutionally protected free speech or petition rights, can be used to review some, but not all, causes of action relating to mandatory hospital medical staff peer review proceedings. [Disclosure: Horvitz & Levy filed an amicus curiae brief in the case.]
The plaintiff physician claims he was retaliated against for raising patient care concerns. The court’s opinion by Justice Leondra Kruger says the anti-SLAPP statute’s applicability depends on “differentiat[ing] between claims based on protected speech and petitioning activity in connection with peer review proceedings,” to which the statute applies, “and the disciplinary actions that result,” which are not subject to anti-SLAPP screening.
Thus, for example, the court concludes physician plaintiffs must early on substantiate allegations they were defamed by “criticism of [their] competence supplied to a body reviewing [their] hospital privileges,” but they don’t have to initially justify claims they were wronged by disciplinary actions taken “based on the view that the doctor’s skills are deficient.” The opinion reasons, “even if the statute shields statements about an individual’s qualifications, the Legislature did not necessarily also intend to shield all actions motivated by those views.”
The opinion also says that, regardless of anti-SLAPP screening requirements, “statements made in the course of peer review proceedings remain as admissible as any others” if they are “probative of defendants’ motives or relevant to any other claims that survive.” This prompts a concurring opinion by Justice Joshua Groban, who writes he is concerned that the court’s “now-settled construction of [the anti-SLAPP statute] does appear to erode the protections that statements made in connection with peer review and other ‘official proceeding[s]’ [citation] would otherwise enjoy.”
The court reverses the Fourth District, Division Three, Court of Appeal, which had reversed the grant of the anti-SLAPP motion in the case. It also disapproves a divided 2017 Second District, Division One, opinion.