Though the trial court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, it may grant the defendant’s special Anti-SLAPP motion to strike und award the defendant attorney fees. Here, an errant attorney stipulated to judgment in a State Bar disciplinary proceeding, then unsuccessfully sought review of the State Bar Court’s judgment in the Supreme Court, and finally filed a suit against the State Bar, claiming discrimination and other wrongs in her State Bar disciplinary proceedings. Though the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction, it properly granted the State Bar’s Anti-SLAPP motion and awarded it attorney fees. Lack of subject matter jurisdiction is just one of many possible non-merits-related reasons for holding, at the second stage of the Anti-SLAPP analysis, that the plaintiff has not shown a probability of success on the merits.
California Supreme Court (Kruger, J.); January 5, 2017; 2017 WL 56342