Mendoza v. ADP Screening and Selection Services, Inc.

Today the Second District Court of Appeal issued an opinion dealing with the use of sex offender information published on the Megan’s Law Website (MLW) and the First Amendment:

The appeal before us today arises from a case in which the interests protected by the MLW statute meet face-to-face with the interests protected by the anti-SLAPP statute. The appeal presents us with two primary questions. First, does an employment-screening business have a constitutional free speech right — as such rights are defined in the anti-SLAPP statute — to republish information disclosed on the MLW to the business’s clients, notwithstanding the statutory prohibitions on the use of such information? Second, in the event such a constitutional free speech right exists, did the trial court properly grant the business’s anti-SLAPP motion to strike an MLW-based complaint for damages on the ground that plaintiff could not show as a matter of law a probability of prevailing?

We answer both questions, yes. The order dismissing plaintiff’s MLW-based complaint under the anti-SLAPP statute is affirmed.

Mendoza v. ADP Screening and Selection Services, Inc. (2010).