Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Oracle Corp.

Plaintiff Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) brought this action against Oracle Corporation (Oracle) alleging that Oracle breached contractual and other duties by announcing that it would no longer make its software products compatible with certain HP hardware products. After the trial court found in a bifurcated trial that Oracle was indeed obligated to adapt its products to the HP systems, and on the very eve of a trial on the questions of breach and remedy, Oracle brought a motion under the antiSLAPP statute, Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16 (§ 425.16), challenging one aspect of HP’s proof of damages. The trial court denied the motion as untimely. Oracle immediately appealed, bringing all further proceedings to a halt. In a pattern that has become all too familiar to the appellate courts of this state, the appeal, like the motion engendering it, is utterly without merit. The motion was late under any reasonable construction of the facts, and it was quite properly denied because it could not possibly achieve the purposes for which the anti-SLAPP statute was enacted. We will therefore affirm, declining to assess sanctions against Oracle only because we do not wish to…