Contreras

This case is before us for a third time. In this latest chapter, Curtis Dowling, a lawyer employed by the firm of Beckman, Marquez & Dowling (collectively Dowling), appeals from an order of the superior court denying his special motion to strike the complaint filed against him by respondent Laura Esmerelda Contreras. (Code Civ. Proc., § 425.16.) In the litigation below, Contreras sued her landlords, Gordon and Carol Butterworth, their son, Steven Stuart, and the Butterworths’ former attorneys for tenant harassment and other causes of action arising out of allegedly illegal entries into Contreras’s apartment. After Dowling assumed representation of the Butterworths, Contreras amended her pleadings to name him as a defendant. She alleged Dowling had aided and abetted his clients’ wrongful entries.

Dowling filed a special motion to strike, contending the only actions he was alleged to have taken involved his representation of the Butterworths, actions he argued constituted protected activity under section 425.16. The trial court denied Dowling’s motion, ruling that Contreras’s action did not arise out of protected activity because she sought to hold him liable not for his…