Stenehjem

A SLAPP suit is one in which the plaintiff “seeks to chill or" punish a party’s exercise of constitutional rights to free speech and to petition the government for redress of grievances. [Citation.]” (Rusheen v. Cohen (2006) 37 Cal.4th 1048, 1055 [ 39 Cal.Rptr.3d 516 , 128 P.3d 713 ].) The California Legislature in 1992 enacted Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16—the anti-SLAPP statute—under which SLAPP suits may be disposed-of summarily by a special motion to strike. But if the “assertedly protected speech or petitioning activity [is] illegal as a matter of law, . . . [defendant] cannot use the anti-SLAPP statute to strike the plaintiff’s complaint.” (Flatley v. Mauro (2006) 39 Cal.4th 299, 305 [ 46 Cal.Rptr.3d 606 , 139 P.3d 2 ] (Flatley).) In Flatley , our high court held that a defendant’s (Attorney Mauro’s)'prelitigation demand—which he characterized in his appeal from an order denying his special motion to strike as “permissible settlement negotiations” (id. at p. 328)—was extortion as a matter of law and therefore not protected activity under the anti-SLAPP law. In this case, we must determine whether a cross-defendant’s prelitigation demand (like Mauro’s in…