Fleishman

David M. Fleishman (petitioner), an attorney for Sunterra Corporation (hereafter Sunterra), seeks extraordinary writ review of the trial court’s order denying his motion for judgment on the pleadings in a malicious prosecution action filed against him. Chester Salisbury (Salisbury), a former Sunterra employee, alleges that petitioner maliciously prosecuted an earlier action (hereafter Sunterra’s action) against him. In that action, the trial court granted Sunterra’s application for a preliminary injunction. Petitioner contends that the issuance of the preliminary injunction conclusively establishes that Sunterra’s entire action was brought with probable cause. We agree and order the issuance of a peremptory writ of mandate.

Facts and Procedural History

Petitioner filed the Sunterra action in July 1999. The complaint alleged as follows: Salisbury was employed by Sunterra to sell time-share interests in the San Luis Bay Inn (hereafter the Inn). In April 1999 Sunterra terminated his employment. Salisbury thereafter “solicited owners of timeshare interests [in] the . . . Inn ... to sell their timeshare interests using [Salisbury] as broker[] and salesperson[] in the…