Mitchell v. Moses CA4/3

INTRODUCTION

Scott Davis, Daniel Mitchell, Christian Schneider, and Schneider’s company Pivotal Campaign Services, LLC, appeal from an order granting an anti-SLAPP motion to strike appellants’ defamation suit, a motion made by respondents Joseph Moses, Archie Warren, and Mark Caldwell. In essence, the trial court granted the motion because appellants Davis and Mitchell had failed to present sufficient evidence of malice and the suit of the other two appellants was barred by the interested-person privilege of Civil Code section 47, subdivision (c). The analysis on appeal is complicated by the appellants’ differing status for defamation purposes. Davis and Mitchell are public figures. They must therefore present clear and convincing evidence of actual malice. Schneider and Pivotal Campaign Services, however, are private figures. They have a significantly lesser burden of proof when it comes to malice. We conclude Davis and Mitchell carried this burden, which is not to prove their allegations but to present a prima facie case. The evidence they presented, if credited, establishes a prima facie case that respondents acted, at the very least, with reckless indifference as to the truth…