Rothschild

MEMORANDUM *

Plaintiffs Corcept Therapeutics and its founders, Alan Sehatzberg and Joseph Be-lanoff, brought suit in 2005 in California state court for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and interference with prospective business relations. Defendant Anthony Rothschild removed the suit to federal court and filed a special motion to strike the plaintiffs’ complaint pursuant to California’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) statute, which provides defendants in California with protection against merit-less suits brought in order to chill their First Amendment rights. Cal.Civ.Proc. Code § 425.16. This is an appeal from the district court’s denial of Rothschild’s anti-SLAPP motion. All the issues before us arise under California law.

The defamation portion of the plaintiffs’ complaint alleged that Rothschild made defamatory postings on Yahoo message boards regarding Corcept, its founders, and its principal product, a drug named Corlux. The plaintiffs’ remaining claims arose from the Yahoo postings as well as a series of harassing phone calls allegedly made by Rothschild. We conclude that the district court correctly denied…

concurring in part and dissenting in part:

I concur in the majority’s disposition, except insofar as it fails to distinguish between those portions of the district court’s ruling which are subject to interlocutory appeal under Zamani v. Carnes, 491 F.3d 990, 994 (9th Cir.2007), and Batzel v. Smith, 333 F.3d 1018, 1024 (9th Cir.2003), and those portions which are not. As the majority disposition indicates, “Plaintiffs’ remaining claims,” ie., the non-defamation portion, “arose from the Yahoo postings as well as a series of harassing phone calls allegedly made by Rothschild.” These include claims for the intentional infliction of emotional distress and for the interference with prospective business relations.

As an example of this harassing-type of activity, plaintiff Alan Schatzberg traveled to Dallas to deliver a lecture at the University of Texas. When Schatzberg called the university on landing, he discovered that someone claiming to be him had called the university and cancelled his lecture, his airport pickup, and his hotel reservation. Rothschild’s telephone records show that he had called the University of Texas ten days before the scheduled lecture. These, of course, are…