Holland

Michael Jerome Holland filed a complaint for libel against his ex-wife Kelly Ann Jones as a limited jurisdiction matter, alleging that she maliciously made false statements about him in a declaration she had filed in their marital dissolution proceeding. The trial court granted Jones’s special motion to strike the complaint under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16, the anti-SLAPP statute, on the ground that it was based on statements protected by the litigation privilege in Civil Code section 47, subdivision (b). Holland moved for reconsideration, and Jones moved for attorney fees as the prevailing defendant on an anti-SLAPP motion. The court denied reconsideration, vacated its order granting the special motion to strike, sua sponte elected to treat the special motion to strike as a demurrer, sustained the demurrer without leave to amend and directed that the motion for attorney fees under the anti-SLAPP statute was moot.

Holland appealed to the appellate division of the superior court, which apparently construed the appeal from the order sustaining a demurrer without leave to amend as an appeal from an order of dismissal. The appellate division then reversed the…