§ 425.17.Inapplicability of Anti-Slapp Law

Section 425.17 responds to what the Legislature found in subdivision (a): abuse of § 425.16 itself, used in ways that undercut rather than serve the interests the anti-SLAPP law was built to protect. It removes two defined categories of action from the anti-SLAPP statute's reach entirely.

The first, in subdivision (b), is the public-interest exception. It applies only when all three conditions hold: the plaintiff seeks no relief greater or different from what benefits the general public or a class the plaintiff belongs to (a request for fees, costs, or penalties does not count as greater or different relief); success would enforce an important public-interest right and confer a significant public benefit; and private enforcement is necessary and would place a disproportionate financial burden on the plaintiff relative to the plaintiff's own stake. The second, in subdivision (c), is the commercial speech exception. It removes anti-SLAPP protection from a cause of action against someone primarily in the business of selling or leasing goods or services when the challenged statement or conduct is a factual representation about that person's own or a competitor's business, goods, or services, made to obtain sales or in the course of providing them, and directed at an actual or potential buyer or someone likely to influence one — or arising in a regulatory approval process (with a specific carve-out for a telephone corporation sued by a competitor over conduct in a Public Utilities Commission proceeding).

Subdivision (d) then carves the carve-out back for certain defendants, regardless of whether the public-interest or commercial speech exception would otherwise apply. Newsgathering journalists and others covered by the reporter's shield provisions of the California Constitution and Evidence Code, and people engaged in book or academic-journal publishing, keep full anti-SLAPP protection. So do actions targeting the creation or dissemination of a dramatic, literary, musical, political, or artistic work — including films, television programs, and newspaper or magazine articles — and nonprofit organizations that draw more than half their annual revenue from government grants or reimbursements.

Subdivision (e) has a practical consequence worth flagging: if a trial court denies a special motion to strike on the ground that the claim falls within one of this section's exemptions, the immediate appeal rights that ordinarily attach to an anti-SLAPP ruling under § 425.16(i) and § 904.1(a)(13) do not apply. A defendant who loses on exemption grounds cannot use the automatic interlocutory appeal to pause the case while appealing that ruling.