Semaan

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs 1 appeal from the trial court’s order granting the special motion of defendants Robert P. Mosier and Mosier & Company, Inc. 2 to strike Plaintiffs’ complaint pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute, Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16. 3 Plaintiffs alleged that Mosier, the court-appointed receiver in a criminal prosecution against plaintiff Simon Semaan, had breached fiduciary duties owed to Plaintiffs by not complying with a court order to liquidate certain investment accounts. We affirm. We hold that a court-appointed receiver is protected by quasi-judicial immunity for the receiver’s discretionary acts and decisions. Because Plaintiffs’ claims arise out of Mosier’s discretionary decisions made in his capacity as court-appointed receiver, Plaintiffs did not meet their burden of proving their claims have the minimal merit necessary to survive an anti-SLAPP motion. As an antecedent to that holding, we conclude Plaintiffs’ claims against Defendants arose out of constitutionally protected activity under section 425.16(e)(4), and Plaintiffs have forfeited any argument to the contrary.

1 Plaintiffs are Simon Semaan, Pierrette Semaan, Mia Semaan,

Simon Semaan,…