MORGAN BANKS, et al., APPELLANTS, v. DAVID H. HOFFMAN, et al., APPELLEES.
No. 20-CV-0318
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS
November 13, 2025
Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the Atlantic and Maryland Reporters. Users are requested to notify the Clerk of the Court of any formal errors so that corrections may be made before the bound volumes go to press.
Bonny J. Forrest, with whom Kirk Jenkins and John B. Williams were on the briefs, for appellants.
Thomas G. Hentoff, with whom John K. Villa, Stephen J. Fuzesi, Krystal C. Durham, and Renee M. Griffin, were on the brief, for appellees Sidley Austin LLP, Sidley Austin (DC) LLP, and David H. Hoffman.
Barbara S. Wahl, with whom Randall A. Brater and Rebecca W. Foreman were on the brief, for appellee American Psychological Association.
Bilal K. Sayyed and Ari Cohn filed a brief on behalf of TechFreedom as amicus curiae in support of appellees.
Landis Cox Best, Britney R. Foerter, Lisa J. Cole, Elizabeth Tang, Elizabeth Vogel, Rachel Smith, Jennifer Mondino, Micaela C. Deming, and Alexandra S. Drobnick filed a brief on behalf of National Women’s Law Center, D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence, DV Leap, & Ten Other Individual & Organizational Survivor Advocates in D.C. as amici curiae in support of appellees.
Laura R. Handman and Eric J. Feder filed a brief on behalf of Amazon Watch, The American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia, The Center for Biological Diversity, The Civil Liberties Defense Center, Direct Action Everywhere, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Greenpeace, Inc., The Mosquito Fleet, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Inc., and The Union of Concerned Scientists, as amici curiae in support of appellees.
Daniel P. Golden, Nicole L. Streeter, Lauren R.S. Mendonsa, and Wei Guo filed a brief on behalf of Council of the District of Columbia as amicus curiae in support of appellees.
Katie Townsend, Mara Gassmann, and Zachary Babo filed a brief on behalf of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 32 Media Organizations as amici curiae in support of appellees.
Before BLACKBURNE-RIGSBY, Chief Judge, and BECKWITH, EASTERLY, DEAHL, HOWARD, and SHANKER, Associate Judges.
Opinion for the unanimous court by Associate Judge DEAHL.
DEAHL, Associate Judge: This case concerns whether the D.C. Council exceeded its authority under the Home Rule Act when it passed the District’s Anti-SLAPP Act. The Home Rule Act precludes the Council from passing any law “with respect to any provision of Title 11 (relating to organization and jurisdiction of the District of Columbia courts).” See
Appellants argue that the Anti-SLAPP Act violates the Home Rule Act because it truncates discovery in certain Superior Court proceedings—namely, those deemed to be “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” or SLAPPs, which are basically suits filed to silence someone from exercising their free speech or petition rights by burdening them with costly litigation so that they abandon their criticisms. In appellants’ view, that truncated discovery process alters the Superior Court’s procedural rules in a manner that only the District’s courts and Congress have the authority to do, per
We disagree with appellants and now hold that the D.C. Council did not exceed its authority by passing the Anti-SLAPP Act. While we acknowledge this case presents a close question about which reasonable minds can differ, we conclude that the Anti-SLAPP Act does not run afoul of
We explain ourselves in three parts: First, we detail the relevant history and foundations of the Home Rule Act, as well as its limitation on the Council’s power to enact legislation with respect to Title 11. Second, we explain why the Anti-SLAPP Act does not run afoul of that limitation. Third, we explain why the appellants’ contrary view suffers from a number of critical flaws. Chief among them is that they would have us strictly police the “substantive law” versus “procedural rule” divide, a creature of federalism concerns not pertinent here, and they would further thrust the District’s courts into a policymaking role that we are fundamentally ill-suited for. We now address those three points in turn.
I. The Home Rule Act grants the Council broad authority to legislate, so long as it does not directly alter Title 11 or fundamentally alter our court system
The Home Rule Act is akin to a Constitution for the District, providing the basic groundwork and structure for our local government. See Washington, D.C. Ass’n of Realtors, Inc. v. District of Columbia, 44 A.3d 299, 303 (D.C. 2012) (“The Home Rule Act operates much like a state constitution.”).
Congress passed the Home Rule Act in 1973 to “grant to the inhabitants of the District of Columbia powers of local self-government,” allowing residents to vote for a mayor and city councilpersons and providing the District with the power to control the agencies and organizations that affect residents’ daily lives.
The Act granted the “D.C. Council broad authority to legislate upon ‘all rightful
To explain that provision, let us rewind to three years before the Home Rule Act’s passage, when Congress enacted the Court Reorganization Act of 1970. The Court Reorganization Act, codified in Title 11 of the D.C. Code, details the “organization, administration[,] and jurisdiction” of the District’s courts. See House Comm. Print at 1450. The purpose of that act was similar to what animated the Home Rule Act itself: It was meant to shift federal jurisdiction over essentially local matters to a newly created D.C. court system, featuring the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and this court. See generally Woodroof v. Cunningham, 147 A.3d 777, 782-84 (D.C. 2016). This new court system needed procedural rules to operate, and Congress provided those in the Court Reorganization Act as follows:
The Superior Court shall conduct its business according to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure . . . unless it . . . adopts rules which modify those Rules. Rules which modify the Federal Rules shall be submitted for the approval of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, and they shall not take effect until approved by that court. The Superior Court may adopt and enforce other rules as it may deem necessary without the approval of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals if such rules do not modify the Federal Rules.
To paraphrase that provision, Congress set the federal rules of procedure as the default in the Superior Court. At the same time, Congress made its disinterest in micromanaging those procedural rules clear, providing that the Superior Court was free to modify or supplant those rules whenever and for whatever reason we wanted, so long as this court approved. And the Superior Court could unilaterally promulgate any “other rules,” without this court’s approval, that did not modify the federal rules. Congress said nothing about whether the Council could modify or supplement the court’s procedural rules, of course, because the Council in its modern form had not yet been created.1 The only relevant legislature at the time was Congress, which was just as free as the District’s courts to amend or supplement those rules.
Now, back to the Home Rule Act. An early draft of that Act would have allowed the Council to “pass acts affecting all aspects of [the District’s] courts,” permitting the Council to shift various matters back to the federal courts, to change our judicial selection processes, to eliminate judgeships, and to eliminate our newly forged courts entirely. House Comm. Print at 942 (proposing to grant such authority eighteen months after the date of enactment); Woodroof, 147 A.3d at 783. That led to some understandable backlash—our courts were just finding their legs, and allowing the Council to upend our organization and
Another member of our newly minted courts, Superior Court Chief Judge Harold H. Greene, voiced the same broad institutional concerns. In his view, allowing the D.C. Council to “completely alter” and “obliterate the structure, organization and jurisdiction” of the District’s courts would “negate all the vested rights of the judicial and nonjudicial personnel of the court system.” Id. at 1421-22. Chief Judge Greene suggested two changes to the draft Home Rule Act to prevent that: (1) eliminate the section that allowed the Council to pass acts affecting “all aspects” of the courts; and (2) add a provision stating that “the organization and jurisdiction of the District of Columbia courts shall be governed by title 11.” Id. at 1423-24. Congress took note of Chief Judge Greene’s requests and acceded to them. The conference committee, to accommodate those requests, agreed that the Home Rule Act should make clear that only Congress, and not the Council, had “authority over the composition, structure[,] and jurisdiction of the D.C. Courts.” H.R. Rep. No. 93-703, at 77 (1973), reprinted in House Comm. Print at 3015.
To that end, when Congress passed the Home Rule Act, it modified its earlier draft to preclude the Council from “[e]nact[ing] any act, resolution, or rule with respect to any provision of Title 11 (relating to organization and jurisdiction of the District of Columbia courts).”
As a textual matter, the parenthetical phrase in
The appellants argue to the contrary, positing that
reference to Title 11 was not otherwise opaque or in need of any clarification. The D.C. Code is replete with express references to Title 11, and nowhere else does it seek to aid the reader in finding that Title by imprecisely restating its caption. See, e.g.,
Our cases have long aligned with our holding today that
(explaining that statutes should not be interpreted in a way that “parentheticals would be superfluous”). But that is neither a hard-and-fast rule nor even a reliable presumption. We have applied that line of thinking only after “consider[ing] . . . the background” of the relevant Act “as a whole,” and providing a “detailed examination of the structure of” the Act and why it supported that conclusion. Fid. & Deposit Co. of Md., 532 A.2d at 678. Here, the background and structure of the Home Rule Act indicate that Section 1-206.02’s parenthetical reference to the “organization and jurisdiction” of the District’s courts was not merely clarifying, but essential to understanding the section’s core purpose.
For example, in Bergman, 986 A.2d at 1225-26, we considered an issue very similar to the one we confront today. Title 11 dictates that this court “shall” make rules regulating bar admission and membership,
That has been the consistent thrust of our precedents interpreting the intersection of the Home Rule Act and the Court Reorganization Act, congruent with their text and legislative history. The Council cannot directly amend Title 11 or otherwise alter the District’s courts’ structure, jurisdiction, or fundamental powers, but it is not precluded from legislating in areas that the courts likewise have some domain over under Title 11.
II. The Anti-SLAPP Act does not amend Title 11 or alter the organization, structure, jurisdiction, or rulemaking authority of the District’s courts
That brings us to the District’s Anti-SLAPP Act and whether its discovery-limiting provisions impermissibly intrude into the District’s courts’ powers under Title 11. That is, is the Anti-SLAPP Act an Act “with respect to any provision of Title 11 (relating to organization and jurisdiction of the District of Columbia courts),”
A. The Anti-SLAPP Act and how it works
Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, in their most classic form are lawsuits brought against individuals to chill the exercise of their First Amendment rights. See generally George W. Pring, SLAPPs: Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, 7 Pace Env’t. L. Rev. 3 (1989). Think of an animal rights activist who, in a public broadcast, complains about a meat producer’s inhumane slaughter of animals. The meat producer might sue that activist for defamation, knowing full well that it has no legitimate grounds for suit, for the sole purpose of miring the activist in protracted and costly litigation—that might shut them, and others like them, up. That’s a SLAPP, and the Anti-SLAPP Act is meant
to root out and mitigate the damaging effects of such suits.5 The Act attempts to accomplish that goal by providing District residents “substantive rights to expeditiously and economically dispense of litigation aimed to prevent their engag[ement] in constitutionally protected actions on matters of public interest.” Anti-SLAPP Act of 2010, Report on Bill No. 18-893 before the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary, Council of the District of Columbia, at 4 (Nov. 18, 2010) [hereinafter D.C. Council Committee Report]. The Act, in other words, “incorporates substantive rights with regard to a defendant’s ability to fend off lawsuits filed by one side of a political or public policy debate aimed to punish or prevent the expression of opposing points of view.” Id. at 1.
More concretely, the Anti-SLAPP Act allows defendants, within forty-five days of being served with a complaint, to “file a special motion to dismiss any claim arising from an act in furtherance of the right of advocacy on issues of public interest.”
motion to dismiss “shall be granted unless the [plaintiff] demonstrates that the claim is likely to succeed on the merits.” Id.; see generally Competitive Enter. Inst. v. Mann, 150 A.3d 1213, 1226-27, 1232-33 (D.C. 2016) (describing the special motion to dismiss).
The key feature of the Anti-SLAPP Act is that it saves litigants from the potentially years-long and prohibitively expensive discovery that often accompanies even baseless litigation, thereby reducing the chilling effects that abusive lawsuits have on First Amendment activity. Once a special motion to dismiss is filed, “discovery proceedings on the claim [are] stayed until the motion has been disposed of.”
B. The Anti-SLAPP Act is within the Council’s broad authority to legislate
We are faced with two competing views about how to best interpret
The District’s interpretation is the better one. It aligns with the purpose of
We hold today that the Council does not run afoul of
The Anti-SLAPP Act—crafted according to the policy judgments of our local legislature—is a routine example of the Council “legislating upon essentially local
District matters.”
As support, we note that various state constitutions preclude the legislature from micromanaging or fundamentally restructuring their judiciaries, similar to how the Home Rule Act restricts the Council from altering our court system’s organization and structure. E.g., Mellowitz v. Ball State Univ., 221 N.E.3d 1214, 1221 (Ind. 2023) (citing
For example, in Indiana, the state constitution establishes the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches: “Enacting laws” is a “legislative function,” whereas “promulgating procedural rules for litigating disputes about those laws is part of the judicial function.” Mellowitz, 221 N.E.3d at 1221. Yet the Indiana Supreme Court has found that the state‘s anti-SLAPP act—which has a discovery-limiting provision like ours, see
jury trial. See Davis v. Cox, 351 P.3d 862, 875 (Wash. 2015) (en banc) (holding that the heightened evidentiary standard “violates the right of trial by jury” under the state‘s constitution); Leiendecker v. Asian Women United of Minn., 895 N.W.2d 623, 637 (Minn. 2017) (same). Both states have since revised their anti-SLAPP statutes to comply with those rulings, and notably, both statutes still limit discovery. See
Our interpretation is further bolstered by the fact that the Council can undoubtedly pass legislation that more directly and severely upends the normal procedural
outside of the court system and into administrative adjudication, thereby rendering our court rules wholly inapplicable to those cases; and, even more broadly, the Council can extinguish entire categories of claims altogether, as it sees fit. See, e.g., District of Columbia v. Sullivan, 436 A.2d 364, 365-66 (D.C. 1981) (rejecting Home Rule Act challenge to statute that decriminalized minor traffic offenses and substituted administrative adjudication); Coleman, 80 A.3d at 1035 n.9 (rejecting Home Rule Act challenge to statute foreclosing certain causes of action).
The power to do those considerably more drastic things, by any logic, must encompass the more modest power to limit the discovery that a certain subset of plaintiffs are entitled to unless and until they can clear some threshold hurdles. See Mann, 150 A.3d at 1229-30 (The Anti-SLAPP Act is “analogous to qualified immunity for official conduct in that its application depends on the court‘s resolution of whether the acts complained of entitle the defendant not to stand trial ‘under certain circumstances.‘” (quoting Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 525 (1985))); D.C. Council Committee Report at 4 (“Following the lead of other jurisdictions, which have similarly extended absolute or qualified immunity to individuals engaging in protected actions, [the Act] extends substantive rights to defendants in
a SLAPP.“). As the Council aptly describes in its amicus brief, the Anti-SLAPP Act‘s special motion to dismiss provides certain individuals with “qualified immunity against discovery,” much like the many immunity statutes enacted
III. Responses to the appellants’ remaining arguments
The appellants’ contrary view is that the Anti-SLAPP Act‘s discovery-limiting provisions’ “procedural nature” means the Act necessarily infringes on our rulemaking authority, thereby violating Title 11. Under that view, the Council is restricted to enacting purely “substantive” laws that do not affect court procedures. We disagree, for three principal reasons.
A. The Superior Court‘s rules are unmodified and still apply in every case
The appellants’ interpretation, while a plausible enough reading of
provision precludes the Council from “[e]nact[ing] any act, resolution, or rule with respect to any provision of Title 11,” which in turn dictates that “[t]he Superior Court shall conduct its business according to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” though the District‘s courts are free to modify those rules (as we frequently do) and the Superior Court can unilaterally promulgate “other rules” governing its procedures.
The appellants never explained how the Anti-SLAPP Act prevents the Superior Court from “conduct[ing] its business according to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.”
nor does it “repeal or otherwise alter the establishment of the Federal Rules . . . as the default rules for the conduct of Superior Court business.” See also Price, 212 A.3d at 845 (
Our local procedural rules still apply in every single anti-SLAPP case, and our courts retain the authority to modify each of those rules, the Anti-SLAPP Act notwithstanding. Many procedural rules come into play before any special motion to dismiss can be filed. See, e.g.,
local rules, and the Anti-SLAPP Act is not a law “with respect to” that in any meaningful sense.
The appellants counter that the Anti-SLAPP Act conflicts with our local
procedure.“); cf. Asylum Co. v. D.C. Dep‘t of Emp. Servs., 10 A.3d 619, 631 (D.C. 2010) (“Courts assume . . . that ‘the historic police powers of the States are not to be superseded by Federal Act unless that is the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.‘” (quoting Cipollone v. Liggett Grp., Inc., 505 U.S. 504, 516 (1992))).
The appellants’ response is premised on the mistaken assumption that the Home Rule Act enshrined the substantive/procedural divide policed by federal courts hearing state law claims. That divide not only lacks any textual grounding in the Home Rule Act, its relevance here is minimal, as we now explain.
B. The Home Rule Act did not enshrine the substantive/procedural divide that governs federal court proceedings
The appellants’ position starts with the premise that the Home Rule Act requires this court to police the “substantive law” versus “procedural rule” divide that guides federal courts, per the Supreme Court‘s seminal decision Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938), when adjudicating state law claims. From that mistaken premise, appellants highlight several federal appellate courts—though they are not uniform on the point—that have concluded that the federal rules of procedure prevail over the procedures dictated by state anti-SLAPP laws when federal courts adjudicate state anti-SLAPP suits. See, e.g., Abbas v. Foreign Pol‘y Grp., LLC, 783 F.3d 1328, 1333-34 (D.C. Cir. 2015); Tah v. Glob. Witness Publ‘g, Inc., 991 F.3d
231, 238-39 (D.C.
First, these cases are rooted in federalism and uniformity concerns that have no bearing here; they seek to ensure “a uniform and consistent system of rules” in the federal courts, Burlington N. R.R. Co. v. Woods, 480 U.S. 1, 5 (1987), rather than miring federal courts in the niceties of each states’ varied procedural rules. See Shady Grove Orthopedic Assocs., P.A. v. Allstate Ins. Co., 559 U.S. 393, 416 (2010) (“[D]ivergence from state law . . . is the inevitable (indeed, one might say the intended) result of a uniform system of federal procedure.“). Those concerns are absent here. The Anti-SLAPP Act applies uniformly in the District‘s courts, and there is no vertical power struggle with the federal government at play, only the horizontal separation of powers concern of whether the Council needs this court‘s approval to enact its limited discovery provisions. So, unlike the federal courts, we have no cause to strictly police the substantive law/procedural rule divide that steers federal court procedures under Erie. That doctrine is inapposite here, and nothing
in the Home Rule Act suggests we should import it into our local courts tasked with adjudicating local law.
Second, these federal cases involve a crucially different question from the one presented here. The federal cases, which jealously guard the interests described in the previous paragraph under Erie, ask whether a state‘s anti-SLAPP law “answers the same question” as a provision of the federal rules. La Liberte, 966 F.3d at 87 (citing Shady Grove, 559 U.S. at 398-99). If so, federal procedure generally governs the federal court proceedings. We confront a fundamentally different question here, which is whether the Anti-SLAPP Act impermissibly interferes with the Superior Court‘s ability to “conduct its business” according to the federal rules as amended by this court.
C. Appellants’ position would thrust the District‘s courts into a policymaking role that they are fundamentally ill-suited for
Perhaps most troublingly, the appellants’ view boils down to the startling proposition that it is up to the courts or Congress to decide whether to enact the Anti-SLAPP Act‘s discovery-limiting provisions. That would be unwelcome news.
The District‘s courts generally are not entrusted with, or particularly adept at,
Several state appellate courts have cogently explained, similarly, that their own anti-SLAPP laws “predominantly further public policy objectives” and thus do not interfere with the judiciary‘s procedural rules or functions. Mellowitz, 221
N.E.3d at 1221; see also, e.g., Robinson v. V.D., 328 A.3d 198, 223-24 (Conn. App. Ct. 2024); Davis v. Parks, No. 61150, 2014 WL 1677659, at *2 (Nev. Apr. 23, 2014) (unpublished). As we have already explained, no state court has ruled otherwise and deprived its own legislature of the power to pass similar anti-SLAPP legislation, which by itself is a pretty devastating blow to appellants’ interpretation of the Home Rule Act. See Sullivan, 436 A.2d at 366 (rejecting Home Rule Act challenge out of hand where “[a]cceptance of this argument would be to hold the Council powerless to act in many areas which have traditionally fallen within the local regulatory domain” (quoting McIntosh v. Washington, 395 A.2d 744, 751 (D.C. 1978))).
While Congress itself could still pass the Anti-SLAPP Act under the appellants’ reasoning, Congress is demonstrably unconcerned with our courts’ local procedural rules. That is no swipe at Congress; it has better things to do. And Congress made its indifference to our local procedural rules readily apparent in the Court Reorganization Act, when it said—to paraphrase—“take these federal rules of procedure as a starting point, but feel free to supplement or modify them as you wish.” See
Moving beyond the Anti-SLAPP Act itself, there are many District statutes that affect discovery just as much as the Anti-SLAPP Act does, and appellants’ reasoning would leave it to our courts to decide whether to give force to those laws by way of rules amendments. Aside from the numerous immunity statutes already discussed, a handful of statutes allow for stays of discovery that are unquestionably procedural, despite the fact that the District‘s courts have never affirmatively adopted them. See, e.g., Medical Malpractice Amendment Act of 2006,
to our courts to decide which of those statutes to approve and reject, guided by what would surely be policy considerations.
Other statutes control the scope of discovery in more limited ways, similar to how the Anti-SLAPP Act asks courts to determine if targeted discovery is necessary at the special motion to dismiss stage. See, e.g.,
Council‘s authority, so too must all of these, unless the courts step in to authorize them.
Then there are the practical concerns with the District‘s courts having to greenlight any legislation that incidentally affects our courts’ procedures. This court has many exemplary qualities, but our “wheels of justice sometimes grind very slowly indeed.” Belcon Inc. v. D.C. Water & Sewer Auth., 826 A.2d 380, 383 (D.C. 2003). That careful deliberateness is often a feature of the judiciary. See Remarks of Justice Alito, 58 Cath. U. L. Rev. 1, 6 (2008) (describing how “[t]urtles figure prominently in the ornamentation of the Supreme Court building” and are often interpreted to “represent[] the slow and steady pace of justice“). But if we inject ourselves into the policymaking process, it would become a significant flaw.
* * *
The Home Rule Act is vital legislation that granted self-governance to the District. The Anti-SLAPP Act, passed by the D.C. Council per its lawmaking authority under the Home Rule Act, ensures that the District‘s residents can speak their minds about public issues without being dragged into protracted and baseless retaliatory litigation. The Anti-SLAPP Act does not run afoul of the Home Rule Act by impermissibly intruding into Title 11 because it does not alter the structure or jurisdiction of the District‘s courts; it does not divest us of our rulemaking authority;
it does not run directly contrary to Title 11; and it does not bring about any other drastic alterations to our judiciary, or seek to micromanage our courts’ procedures, in any way that Congress sought to preclude the Council from doing when it passed the Home Rule Act. The Anti-SLAPP Act does not unduly infringe on the District‘s
Appellants raise several other challenges to the trial court‘s ruling, and we return the case to the division for it to address those matters in light of this opinion.
So ordered.