DC Comics v. Pacific Pictures Corp., et al, No. 11-56934 (9th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseThis case arose from a dispute over the character Superman that Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster jointly created and thereafter gave rights to DC Comic's predecessor. Defendants appealed the district court's denial of defendants' motion, pursuant to California's anti-SLAPP statute, Cal. Civ. Proc. Code 425.16, to strike certain of DC Comics' state law claims. At issue was whether the court's decision in Batzel v. Smith remained good law after the Supreme Court's intervening decision in Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter. In Batzel, the court held that the collateral order doctrine permitted a party to take an interlocutory appeal of an order denying motions to strike pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute. The court held that such motions remained among the class of orders for which an immediate appeal was available. Thus, the holding in Batzel remained good law and the order denying the motion to strike pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute remained immediately appealable pursuant to the collateral order doctrine. Therefore, the court had jurisdiction and decided the merits in a memorandum disposition filed concurrently.
Court Description: Appellate Jurisdiction. The panel held that it had jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal of an order denying defendants’ motion, pursuant to California’s anti-SLAPP statute, to strike certain state law claims in an action under the Copyright Act. The panel concluded that Batzel v. Smith, 333 F.3d 1018 (9th Cir. 2003), holding that the collateral order doctrine permits a party to take an interlocutory appeal of an order denying an anti-SLAPP motion, remains good law after the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Mohawk Indus. v. Carpenter, 130 S. Ct. 599 (2009). The panel distinguished Metabolic Research, Inc. v. Ferrell, 693 F.3d 795 (9th Cir. 2012), and Englert v. MacDonell, 551 F.3d 1099 (9th Cir. 2009), which addressed Oregon and Nevada anti-SLAPP statutes more akin to defenses against liability than immunities from suit. The panel noted that its holding comported with the conclusions of the First and Fifth Circuits.
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