Gopher Media LLC v. Melone

Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 

Date Filed: March 24, 2025

Background: In 2021, Ajay Thakore and his company, Gopher Media LLC, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Andrew Melone and his restaurant, American Pizza Manufacturing, alleging, among other things, racial discrimination and violations of Thakore’s First Amendment rights. Melone and his restaurant responded by filing defamation and other counterclaims against Thakore and Gopher Media stemming from statements Thakore made in several Instagram posts and Yelp restaurant reviews.

Gopher Media moved to strike the complaint under California’s anti-SLAPP law, which allows courts to quickly dismiss meritless lawsuits intended to chill speech. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California denied the motion to strike. 

Gopher Media appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit thereafter issued an order directing that it would decide the case en banc and that the parties must file supplemental briefs addressing the anti-SLAPP statute’s application in federal court and its right of interlocutory review.

Our Position: In a friend-of-the-court brief addressing the first of the two issues raised by the court of appeals, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a coalition of 25 media organizations urge it to reaffirm its longstanding recognition that California citizens are entitled to the substantive protections of the anti-SLAPP law’s fee-shifting provisions in federal district court.

• California’s anti-SLAPP law protects against meritless, retaliatory litigation that chills newsgathering and threatens press freedom.

• The Ninth Circuit has repeatedly and correctly held that the substantive provisions of California’s anti-SLAPP law apply in federal court, and that fee-shifting provisions are substantive in nature.

• If federal courts allowed SLAPP plaintiffs to evade the substantive provisions of California’s law, including the fee-shifting provision, plaintiffs would be incentivized to take their claims from state to federal court.

From the Brief: “If this Court were to overrule its longstanding, well-reasoned precedents establishing that California’s anti-SLAPP statute applies in federal court, it would have broad ramifications for the press and Media Amici, in particular, emboldening plaintiffs to pursue harassing and meritless federal court litigation that evades and thwarts substantive state law and policy and that could impair the press’s ability to report the news and keep the public informed.”  

Related: In February 2024, the Reporters Committee and a coalition of media organizations filed a friend-of-the-court brief on the same issue in Martinez v. ZoomInfo Technologies, Inc., urging the Ninth Circuit to reaffirm that the fee-shifting provisions in California’s anti-SLAPP law apply in federal court. The parties in that case settled before the full court decided the matter.