## Facts

- D.C., a 15-year-old high school student, maintained a personal promotional website that allowed visitor comments.
- Several classmates posted harassing, homophobic, and threatening messages about D.C. and his perceived sexual orientation.
- R.R., another student, posted a graphic comment describing a desire to kill or seriously harm D.C., using violent language and slurs.
- Other students viewed and discussed the post, leading to questions and attention directed at D.C. at school.
- D.C.’s father discovered the post, shut down the website, and contacted police; police advised D.C. to stay home while the threat was investigated.
- D.C. withdrew from his school and relocated to attend a different school.
- D.C. and his parents sued R.R. and others for statutory civil-rights violations and tort claims; R.R. and his parents moved to strike under California’s anti-SLAPP statute.

## Issues

1. Whether the claims against R.R. arose from protected activity under Code of Civil Procedure § 425.16 because the challenged conduct was speech in connection with a public issue or an issue of public interest.
2. Whether R.R.’s online message was protected speech for anti-SLAPP purposes or instead fell outside First Amendment protection as an actionable threat or intimidation.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the order denying the anti-SLAPP motion.
- Defendants failed to meet their threshold burden to show the suit arose from protected activity in connection with a public issue or issue of public interest.
- The court concluded defendants did not show the message was protected speech; characterizing the post as a “joke” did not convert it into public-issue expression.
- Because defendants failed at step one, the court did not reach step two (plaintiffs’ probability of prevailing).

## Legal Principles

- Under § 425.16, a defendant must first show the challenged causes of action arise from acts in furtherance of petition or free-speech rights in connection with a public issue; failure at step one requires denial of the motion without reaching the merits.
- A topic that may be of public concern in the abstract (e.g., bullying or sexual orientation) does not satisfy the statute where the speech is a private, targeted attack on an individual and not part of public discourse.
- Anti-SLAPP protection presupposes speech that is at least arguably protected; violent, directed threats and intimidation are generally outside First Amendment protection and are ill-suited for anti-SLAPP shelter.
- A speaker’s claimed humorous intent does not, by itself, transform violent, targeted online speech into protected activity or public-issue speech under § 425.16.

## Conclusion

The court held that a student’s graphic, targeted online threat against a classmate was not speech in connection with a public issue and was not shown to be protected expression, so the defendants could not invoke anti-SLAPP to strike statutory civil-rights and tort claims at the threshold.


D.C. v. R.R., 182 Cal. App. 4th 1190 (Cal. Ct. App. 2010)