NICHOLAS T. ANDERSON, Appellant, v. MEAGAN M. SMITH, f/k/a Meagan M. Wohlfeil, Appellee.
Docket No. 131714
SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
June 25, 2026
2026 IL 131714
JUSTICE ROCHFORD delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion. Chief Justice Neville and Justices Overstreet, Holder White, Cunningham, O’Brien, and Tailor concurred in the judgment and opinion.
¶ 1 The question presented is the appropriate framework for evaluating a motion to dispose of a “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation” (SLAPP) under the
I. BACKGROUND
¶ 3 In 2017, plaintiff, Nicholas T. Anderson, and defendant, Meagan M. Smith, formerly known as Meagan M. Wohlfeil, attended a press conference held in a park. The press conference preceded a public hearing on a measure to approve a hog farming operation. Anderson supported the measure, whereas Smith opposed it. During an on-camera interview with another proponent of the measure, Smith stood behind the speaker holding a sign that read, “[F]arms, yes; factory farms, no.” Anderson approached Smith. Although the parties disagree as to the details of their interaction, it is undisputed that Smith said, “I don‘t know you” and “don‘t touch me.”
¶ 4 Smith asked a family member to call the police and told the responding officer that Anderson had pushed her, specifically by bumping his chest into her to prevent her from displaying her sign during the interview. The officer arrested Anderson for assault. Anderson denied the allegations and told the officer that he “may have brushed into [Smith‘s] arm.” Anderson was later charged with battery but was found not guilty after a bench trial on May 31, 2019.
¶ 6 On March 14, 2023, Smith filed a motion to dismiss under the Act pursuant to
¶ 7 Smith later filed a motion for summary judgment that also requested relief under the Act. The trial court denied the motion, ruling that there were triable issues of fact for the jury. The appellate court granted Smith‘s petition for leave to appeal under
¶ 8 The appellate court extensively cited this court‘s decisions in Sandholm v. Kuecker, 2012 IL 111443, and Glorioso v. Sun-Times Media Holdings, LLC, 2024 IL 130137. It noted that in Glorioso, we adopted a three-part, “post-Sandholm” test that the appellate court had been applying in the years following Sandholm to determine whether a lawsuit was subject to dismissal under the Act. 2025 IL App (4th) 241076, ¶ 25. The instant dispute involves the second prong of the test, for which the movant has the burden to show that the plaintiff‘s claims are solely based on, related to, or in response to the movant‘s exercise of his or her right to participate in government. Id.
¶ 9 The appellate court noted that Ryan adopted a “meritless and retaliatory” standard for the second prong following Sandholm, which other First District decisions followed. Id. ¶ 33. However, the court determined that Ryan improperly
¶ 10 The appellate court held that the trial court improperly applied Ryan‘s “meritless and retaliatory” standard and further failed to resolve the factual issues. Id. ¶ 83. It therefore reversed and remanded with directions. Id. ¶¶ 83-87.
¶ 11 This court allowed Anderson‘s petition for leave to appeal.
II. ANALYSIS
¶ 13 We begin by noting that the trial court denied Smith‘s motion for summary judgment, which included a request for relief under the Act. The denial of a summary judgment motion is interlocutory and therefore ordinarily not appealable. Arangold Corp. v. Zehnder, 187 Ill. 2d 341, 357 (1999). However, the Act permits the moving party to seek to dispose of a SLAPP in any type of pleading filed to dispose of a judicial claim, including summary judgment (see
¶ 14 That being said, Smith asserts that we should construe her request for relief under the Act pursuant to the standards of
¶ 15 SLAPPs are lawsuits that use the threat of monetary damages and/or substantial defense costs to either deter individuals from exercising their political rights or punish them for doing so. Id. at 630. To counter what it saw as a “disturbing increase” in the number of SLAPPs, the legislature enacted the Act in 2007.
¶ 16 The Act applies to
“any motion to dispose of a claim in a judicial proceeding on the grounds that the claim is based on, relates to, or is in response to any act or acts of the moving party in furtherance of the moving party‘s rights of petition, speech, association, or to otherwise participate in government.
Acts in furtherance of the constitutional rights to petition, speech, association, and participation in government are immune from liability, regardless of intent or purpose, except when not genuinely aimed at procuring
favorable government action, result, or outcome.” 735 ILCS 110/15 (West 2024) .3
¶ 17 A trial court must hold a hearing and rule on the motion under the Act within 90 days after the respondent is given notice.
¶ 18 After Sandholm, the appellate court began applying a test for motions under the Act, which we adopted in Glorioso. Pursuant to this post-Sandholm test, which incorporates the Act‘s statutory requirements:
“the movant has the burden to show that (1) the movant‘s acts were in furtherance of his rights to petition, speak, associate, or otherwise participate in government to obtain favorable government action and (2) plaintiff‘s claims are solely based on, related to, or in response to the movant‘s exercise of these rights. [Citation.] If the movant meets its burden under the first two prongs, in order to defeat the motion, plaintiff must prove by clear and convincing evidence what is considered the third prong of the test: that the movant‘s acts were not genuinely aimed at procuring favorable government action.” (Emphases in original.) Glorioso, 2024 IL 130137, ¶ 55.
¶ 20 The second prong is the main dispute. In Glorioso, the parties also disagreed on the proper approach to the second prong, specifically whether it required the defendants to show that the lawsuit was meritless, retaliatory, or both. Id. ¶ 56. This topic was the focus of the appellate court dissent in Glorioso. Id. However, we ultimately resolved the case on the first prong and did not reach the second prong. Id. ¶¶ 56, 69.
¶ 21 Thus, we turn to Sandholm. There, we observed that “SLAPPs are, by definition, meritless,” because the plaintiffs bringing such suits do not intend to win but instead seek to chill a defendant‘s participation in government and discourage others from opposition through delay, expense, and distraction. Sandholm, 2012 IL 111443, ¶ 34. We agreed that, “if the plaintiff‘s intent in bringing suit is to recover damages for alleged defamation and not to stifle or chill defendants’ rights of petition, speech, association, or participation in government, it is not a SLAPP and does not fall under the purview of the Act.” Id. ¶ 42. We stated that it was “clear that the legislation is aimed at discouraging and eliminating meritless, retaliatory SLAPPs, as they traditionally have been defined” (id.), and not “where a plaintiff files suit genuinely seeking relief for damages for the alleged defamation or intentionally tortious acts of defendants” (id. ¶ 45). “In light of the clear legislative intent *** to subject only meritless, retaliatory SLAPP suits to dismissal,” we construed the phrase ” ‘based on, relates to, or is in response to’ in section 15 to mean solely based on, relating to, or in response to ‘any act or acts of the moving party in furtherance of the moving party‘s rights of petition, speech, association, or to otherwise participate in government.’ ” (Emphasis in original.) Id. (quoting
¶ 22 Ryan cited Sandholm in concluding that, to satisfy the second prong of the test, the movant must affirmatively demonstrate that the nonmovant‘s claim was a SLAPP in that “the claim [was] meritless and was filed in retaliation against the movant‘s protected activities” to deter the movant from those activities. Ryan, 2012 IL App (1st) 120005, ¶ 21. Ryan further cited the pre-Sandholm case Hytel Group, Inc. v. Butler, 405 Ill. App. 3d 113, 125-26 (2010), which identified two potential factors that may indicate a retaliatory motive: the time between the protected activity and the complaint‘s filing, and whether the amount of damages sought is disproportionate to the alleged harm. Ryan, 2012 IL App (1st) 120005, ¶ 23. The First District subsequently applied Ryan‘s approach in numerous cases, narrowing it to a second-prong test that examines only whether the suit is meritless and retaliatory and adding that a claim is meritless if the movant can disprove an essential element of the claim. See, e.g., Prakash v. Parulekar, 2020 IL App (1st) 191819, ¶ 38; Chadha v. North Park Elementary School Ass‘n, 2018 IL App (1st) 171958, ¶¶ 92-93; Goral v. Kulys, 2014 IL App (1st) 133236, ¶¶ 37-40; Samoylovich v. Montesdeoca, 2014 IL App (1st) 121545, ¶ 29; Stein v. Krislov, 2013 IL App (1st) 113806, ¶ 17; Garrido v. Arena, 2013 IL App (1st) 120466, ¶¶ 18-19.
¶ 23 Anderson argues that the appellate court‘s departure from First District precedent applying the “meritless and retaliatory” standard shifts procedural protections in the movant‘s favor. According to Anderson, a defendant can always argue that the plaintiff‘s true motive is retaliation, and the trial court must now make dispositive factual findings on a limited record. He notes that anti-SLAPP statutes in some other states first require a determination that the suit is objectively baseless. Anderson further points out that the appellate court here determined that “meritless” cannot mean lacking in legal merit in part because 10% to 20% of SLAPP cases result in judgments for plaintiffs. See 2025 IL App (4th) 241076, ¶ 42 (citing Sandholm, 2012 IL 111443, ¶ 34). He disputes that statistic as overstated based on the underlying studies and argues that, regardless, SLAPPs remain overwhelmingly legally meritless. Anderson also argues that the Act is not redundant of traditional dispositive motions, as it offers the additional protections
¶ 24 Smith responds that both the Act‘s text and Sandholm focus on whether a plaintiff genuinely seeks relief, rather than on whether the claims are legally meritless. She argues that the Act targets lawsuits that chill protected activity and not those that merely lack merit. In her view, nothing in the Act “indicates an intention to regulate the reasonableness of defamation claims generally” but rather to prevent the abuse of judicial process where the plaintiff‘s purpose is to harass individuals and organizations for participating in public affairs, which is a question only a subjective standard can address. Smith further contends that the appellate court‘s reference to the disputed statistics was not central to its reasoning and that it simply used the statistics to support two noncontroversial conclusions: that a SLAPP claim is meritless because it does not warrant litigation on the merits and that postponing this determination until after trial would deprive the movant of the benefits that the Act was designed to provide.
¶ 25 We agree with Smith and the appellate court below that Ryan and its progeny misinterpreted Sandholm as establishing a strict “meritless and retaliatory” test. When using the phrase “meritless, retaliatory SLAPP” lawsuits, we used the terms “meritless” and “retaliatory” as adjectives to describe SLAPPs, rather than as elements that a movant must prove to establish that a lawsuit is a SLAPP. See Sandholm, 2012 IL 111443, ¶¶ 44-45. Tellingly, we never stated that a defendant was required to prove that a lawsuit was both meritless and retaliatory, nor did we apply such a test in resolving the issue before us. See id. ¶ 57. This is consistent with the Act itself, which contains no such requirements. Anderson acknowledged at oral argument that Sandholm did not apply a “meritless and retaliatory” test to resolve the issue of whether the case was a SLAPP. Indeed, the paragraph encompassing our determination that the defendants did not meet their burden under the Act does not use the terms “merit“/“meritless” or “retaliatory” at all. See id.
¶ 26 Again, the second prong of the post-Sandholm test requires the defendant to show that the plaintiff‘s claims are solely based on, related to, or in response to the movant‘s exercise of the rights to petition, speak, associate, or otherwise participate in government to obtain favorable government action. Glorioso, 2024 IL 130137,
¶ 27 We part ways with the appellate court on its holding that a factual dispute on any prong of the post-Sandholm test requires the trial court to hold an evidentiary hearing and decide the disputed factual issues. 2025 IL App (4th) 241076, ¶ 75. The legislature chose to have claims of immunity under the Act raised in any type of pleading that seeks to dispose of a judicial claim (see
¶ 28 We recognize that the Act sets forth a procedure that differs from a typical
¶ 29 Additionally, if the legislature intended to allow an evidentiary hearing on the motion, it could have so specified, as at least two states have done in their anti-SLAPP statutes. See
¶ 30 Rather, the trial court must determine the plaintiff‘s subjective intent in bringing the suit from the pleadings and other supporting documents, which, as in this case, could include depositions obtained before discovery was suspended. The defendant must show that the plaintiff‘s subjective intent in bringing the suit is solely based
¶ 31 The two factors that the First District has been using to assess whether a lawsuit was retaliatory, namely the timing of the complaint and whether the damages sought are disproportionate to the injury alleged, could play a role in assessing intent in some cases. See Symposium, “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” (“SLAPPs“): An Introduction for Bench, Bar and Bystanders, 12 Bridgeport L. Rev. 937, 950 (1992) (one of the “classic indicators” of a SLAPP is claims for large monetary damages, disproportionate to realistic losses). However, even Ryan and Hytel recognized that such considerations are case-specific and not to be applied in a blanket fashion. See Ryan, 2012 IL App (1st) 120005, ¶ 23; Hytel, 405 Ill. App. 3d at 126. Similarly, whether a complaint is meritless, because it is frivolous or an essential element can be disproved, may bear on the plaintiff‘s intent, but it is not a prerequisite to satisfying the second prong of the test, as earlier appellate court decisions required. A claim that could theoretically succeed on the legal merits may therefore still be dismissed as a SLAPP, but only if the defendant meets the difficult burden of showing that the plaintiff brought the claim solely to deter or punish the defendant for participation in government. If, after reviewing the pleadings and supporting documents, the trial court determines that a material factual dispute remains regarding the plaintiff‘s intent, the defendant has failed to meet his or her burden, and the trial court must deny the motion to dismiss under the Act with prejudice.
¶ 32 Conversely, if the trial court determines that the defendant has met the second prong burden, the burden shifts to the plaintiff in the third prong of the test to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant‘s acts were not genuinely aimed at procuring a favorable government outcome, which is also a subjective
III. CONCLUSION
¶ 34 In sum, for cases filed before January 1, 2026, we agree with the appellate court that the second prong of the post-Sandholm test requires determining the plaintiff‘s subjective intent in bringing the suit, rather than applying the rigid “meritless and retaliatory” standard derived from Ryan. However, we disagree with the appellate court that this inquiry can lead to a factfinding evidentiary hearing. Instead, the trial court should base its ruling only on the pleadings and supporting documents.
¶ 35 For the reasons stated, we affirm the judgment of the appellate court as modified, which reversed the trial court‘s ruling and remanded for further proceedings.
¶ 36 Appellate court judgment affirmed as modified.
¶ 37 Circuit court judgment reversed.
¶ 38 Cause remanded.