Lourick

I. BACKGROUND

The record on appeal consists entirely of the court’s judgment, the notice of entry of judgment, Lourick’s notice of appeal, and Lourick’s notice designating the record on appeal. As such, our procedural and factual background is limited to the information contained in these documents and any attachments thereto. On April 20, 2017, Lourick filed the underlying action. In September 2023, the court entered an order granting Defendants’ motion to dismiss Lourick’s operative complaint. The court extended the deadline to bring the matter to trial based on the COVID-19 pandemic, and found that the deadline to bring the matter to trial had been February 6, 2023. Lourick had apparently argued in response to Defendants’ motion that the court should exclude an additional 995 days during which H&H’s appeal of the denial of its special motion to strike was pending. According to the trial court, Lourick argued “ ‘[a]s a result of the appeal from the denial of the special motion to strike, further trial proceedings on the merits should have been automatically stayed.’ ” The trial court disagreed. It explained Lourick “fails to elucidate how H&H’s appeal from the denial of its…