Alfaro v. Waterhouse Management Corp.
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Appellant Waterhouse Management Corp. is the property manager of Nomad Village Mobile Home Park (the Park), a 150- space mobile home park in Santa Barbara. Appellant Lazy Landing MHP, LLC, owns the long-term ground lease for the Park. Respondents are current and former lessees of mobile homes in the Park. They initially sued Appellants for violations of the Mobilehome Residency Law (Civ. Code, Section 798 et seq.) and the Mobilehome Parks Act (Health & Saf. Code, Section 18200 et seq.), alleging failure to properly maintain the Park. While Respondents’ lawsuit (the original lawsuit) was pending, Appellants filed a malicious prosecution action against Respondents.
One of the mentioned acts was appellants’ filing of the malicious prosecution action. Seizing on this reference to protected activity, appellants filed a special motion to strike respondents’ entire eleventh cause of action as a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation).
The Second Appellate District affirmed the trial court’s order denying Appellants’ special to strike the eleventh cause of action and imposing sanctions of $8,750 for making a frivolous motion. The court explained these allegations “merely provide context, without supporting a claim for recovery . . ..” Respondents’ claim for recovery arises out of their allegations of retaliation in violation of Civil Code section 1942.5, subdivision (d), which does not apply to a lessor’s retaliatory malicious prosecution action against a lessee.
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