Second District, Division 1 Rules Plaintiff’s Mandate Challenge to Compel City To Award a Contract Through Competitive Bidding Not Subject to anti-SLAPP Statute.
City of Pico Rivera likely felt pretty good after SLAPPing a plaintiff business’s mandate challenge to City’s invalidation of a contract with plaintiff and reentry into a contract with one of plaintiff’s competitors. It probably even felt better after the trial court granted plaintiff a mandatory award of $24,442.50 in attorney’s fees under the SLAPP mandatory fee-shifting statute.
Plaintiff’s appeal resulted in a POOF!—the SLAPP grant was reversed as well as the fee award in Graffiti Protective Coatings, Inc. v. City of Pico Rivera, Case No. B213322 (2d Dist., Div. 1 Feb. 5, 2010) (certified for publication).
Presiding Justice Mallano, writing for a likeminded 3-0 panel, determined that plaintiff’s challenge—based on the lack of competitive bidding when it reawarded the contract to a competitor—was not subject to being SLAPPed. Plaintiff was not basing liability on protected communications, but only using them as evidence in establishing that City violated the law. Plaintiff’s challenge was to illegal conduct, and the SLAPP statute should not be construed to discourage attempts to compel public entities to comply with the law. With that decision, the fee award fell also.
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