Does M.F. Farming Co. v. Couch Distributing Co. (2012) 207 Cal.App.4th 180 apparently conflict with Wang v. Walmart (2007) 153 Cal.App.4th 790 sub silentio?
Couch is the "city permit/easement dispute" case.
Plaintiff, M.F. Farming, alleged the following in its First Amended Complaint (FAC): Plaintiff MF and defendant Couch Distributing entered into a written agreement in about November 1974 in which MF agreed to sell Parcels A and C to defendant Couch and to grant the company "a non exclusive right of way easement for ingress and egress and for all utility purposes over Parcel B. These parcels were on the ocean side of and abutted Highway 1. By grant deed recorded on June 5, 1975, M.F. granted the two Parcels A and C and the right of way/utility easement over Parcel B to defendant Couch. Defendant Couch purchased Parcel A for purposes of constructing and operating its Budweiser distribution center.
The FAC stated on information and belief that "on a parcel map dated December 1979, as well as subsequent parcel maps submitted to the City of Watsonville by Couch Distributing as part of its application for building permits, Couch Distributing knowingly showed Parcel B as a right of way easement rather than as a separate parcel in order to obtain permits which were otherwise not legal. The complaint further stated that plaintiff, MF now desires to develop and use its property that abuts the inland side of Highway 1 and intends to use parcel B for access. Couch contends that MF has in some manner lost the right to use Parcel B for ingress and egress.
Based on these facts, MF alleged four causes of action for quiet title, slander of title, cancellation of cloud on title, and injunctive relief. Only the latter three were the subject of Couch's anti-SLAPP motion. The slander of title cause of action alleged that defendant Couch Distributing published, without privilege or justification, false maps and plot plans that cast doubt on plaintiff's title. The cancellation of cloud on title cause of action alleged that the improperly published documents were false and fraudulently indicated Couch owned the property at issue and plaintiff MF owned only an easement. It further alleged that defendants were using the false claim of ownership as grounds for obtaining permits for the unlawful development of defendants' property and to prevent plaintiff from developing the subject property and/or causing various government agencies to coerce plaintiff into granting defendants rights and/or ownership of the subject property." The action for injunctive relief alleged that the defendants had blocked plaintiff from the free use of its property of Parcel B as a means of ingress and egress to its property abutting Highway 1.
Defendant submitted the declaration of George Couch which averred as follows: MF's proposed specific plan for the proposed development provided for "a major public access road across Parcel B. Couch testified that "this road would have routed substantial amounts of traffic through the heart of Couch Distributing's operations, which would have been devastating to its continued operations. Moreover, defendant Couch had opposed the use of Parcel B as a public access road in the City's administrative proceedings. George Couch or his attorney appeared at several noticed hearings to testify in opposition to the road and the attorney also wrote two letters to the City expressing the company's strong opposition to the road.
Using another "arising from" analysis, the court noted seminal SLAPP cases from our High Court that held: " The mere fact that an action was field after protected activity took place does not mean the action arose from that activity for purposes of the anti-SLAPP statute. That a cause of action may arguably have been "triggered" by protected activity does not entail is one arising from such activity.
Although the defendant's opposition to the City's approval of Parcel B as an access road to the development might have been a trigger for the lawsuit, those activities were not the basis for challenged causes of action. The complaint's second and third causes of action concerned defendant Couch Distributing's publication of allegedly false maps and documents. In fact, MF's declarations submitted in opposition to the SLAPP motion focused squarely on the two site plans. MF recognizes that the "site plans were submitted to the City of Watsonville as part of the development of Couch's property. Since the site maps were apparently submitted to the City in connection with its permitting process, an official proceeding, it appears that the arising from prong is satisfied as to the second and third causes of action. Since the cause of action arose directly out of statements made and plans submitted to the planning commission and the city council, the defendant satisfied the first prong of the anti-SLAPP statute. Plaintiff MF argued that defendant's statements to the City were fraudulent and thus did not constitute the exercise of free speech or petition. But the Court rejected plaintiff's argument holding that the issue of whether the statements were fraudulent is an issue to be addressed on prong two. The Court also rejected MF' argument that Couch's statements were fraudulent and illegal as a matter of law because there was a clear factual dispute on the point.
As to the fourth cause of action for injunctive relief, the court found that this cause of action arose from both protected and unprotected activity as it incorporated the allegations of petition activity from the prior causes of action by reference but also added allegations of overuse of the easement, encroachments, and other physical interferences with the easement. Having concluded that the injunctive relief claim was a mixed cause of action, the court held, relying on Haight-Ashbury Free Clinics v. Happening House, that the protected activity is not merely incidental, the first prong is satisfied, and the burden shifts to plaintiff to show a probability of prevailing on prong two. In this respect, MF Farming represents a continuation of the recent trend of following a broad plain language construction of the "arising from" prong in mixed cause of action cases while rejecting earlier narrow interpretation cases, like Wang v. Walmart. It is interesting that MF Farming failed to mention Wang because it is virtually indistinguishable from MF Farming and yet Wang found that the defendant's statements in the City Permit hearing were merely incidental to the claim and thus were not the "principal thrust or gravamen" of the claim.
On prong two, the court outlined the elements of a slander of title claim and found that plaintiff failed to adduce evidence to support the claim. First, the court found that it does not appeal that MF can show that Couch published documents that falsely represented that it owned Parcel B or falsely claimed some legal interest in it since there is no dispute that Couch owned an easement over Parcel B. Secondly, the court found that no evidence or expert testimony was introduced showing that defendant's recordation of the parcel map or submission of the site plans to the City had actually impaired the value of Parcel B. There was no evidence of proximately-caused pecuniary loss as to the slander of title claim. As to the third cause of action for cancellation of cloud on title, plaintiff, likewise, could not show that defendant's recordation and submissions to the City cast a cloud on title precisely, because there was no evidence of falsity or disparagement of title and no evidence of pecuniary loss was presented.
As to the fourth cause for injunctive relief, a mixed cause of action, the Court cited, indirectly, via our High Court opinion in Oasis West Realty v. Goldman, the Mann rule and held that because plaintiff produced evidence of unprotected activity alleged that defendant physically interfered with and overburdened plaintiff's right of way easement, plaintiff was able to show a probability of prevailing. Hence, the entire claim stands. Note that under City of Colton, the bribery case previously discussed in my prior blog, the result would have been different. Under Colton, the court would have split the injunctive relief claim into two separate causes of action. The Court would have stricken that part of the claim based on protected petition activity and allowed the remainder of the cause of action based on the unprotected activity to proceed. Under Mann, the entire cause of action stands. Under Colton, only that part of the claim based on protected activity gets stricken if plaintiff fails to show a probability of prevailing.
The MF Farming case presents a number of juicy SLAPP issues in mixed cause of action SLAPP cases on both prong one and prong two that, hopefully, will get resolved by our High Court soon.
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