IQE PLC v. NEWPORT FAB, LLC
Split Score
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Case Summary
Disposition
Vacated
The Federal (13th) Circuit held that a district court’s denial of a California anti-SLAPP motion to strike is an immediately appealable collateral order and vacated the district court’s order that had refused to strike IQE’s state-law interference and trade-secret claims. The panel ruled the district court incorrectly stopped its anti-SLAPP analysis at step one and remanded for proper step-two consideration of the likelihood of IQE’s success.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
Whether state anti-SLAPP statutes apply in federal court proceedings (and therefore permit anti-SLAPP motions and immediate collateral-order appeals) or are displaced by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Circuit Positions
State anti-SLAPP statutes apply in federal court; denials are immediately appealable under the collateral-order doctrine.
State anti-SLAPP statutes conflict with the Federal Rules and do not apply in federal court; denials are not immediately appealable.
Conflict Summary
Several circuits (e.g., 1st, 2nd, 5th, 9th, and now the 13th) treat state anti-SLAPP statutes as substantive law that applies in federal court and allow immediate appeals from denials under the collateral-order doctrine. Other circuits (e.g., 7th, 10th, 11th) hold that anti-SLAPP provisions conflict with, and are therefore pre-empted by, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, so such motions are unavailable and denials are not immediately appealable.