Bristol Asphalt, Co., Inc. v. Rochester Bituminous Prod., Inc.

227 N.E.3d 1019

BRISTOL ASPHALT, CO., INC., & another¹

v.ROCHESTER BITUMINOUS PRODUCTS, INC., & others.²

SJC-13460

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Plymouth.

Argued October 2, 2023.

Decided February 29, 2024.

"Anti-SLAPP" Statute. Practice, Civil, Motion to dismiss. Constitutional Law, Right to petition government. Zoning, Site plan approval, Wetlands. Municipal. Corporations, Conservation commission. Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act.

Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on August 17, 2020.

A special motion to dismiss was heard by Thomas F. McGuire, Jr., J.

After review by the Appeals Court, the Supreme Judicial Court granted leave to obtain further appellate review.

Michael S. Rabieh, Boston, for the defendants.

Brian M. Hurley, Boston (Lauren C. Galvin, Boston, also present) for the plaintiffs.

Robert C. Ross, Boston, for NAIOP Massachusetts, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.

Jeffrey J. Pyle, Boston, for New England First Amendment Coalition, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.

Present: Budd, C.J., Gaziano, Lowy, Kafker, Wendlandt, & Georges, JJ.³

KAFKER, J.

In this case, along with another opinion issued today, Columbia Plaza Assocs. v. Northeastern Univ., 403 Mass. —, 227 N.E.3d 999 (2024), we revisit the analytic framework of a statute that has played an increasingly prominent, and complex, role in civil litigation over the last thirty years. General Laws c. 231, § 59H, more commonly known as the "anti-SLAPP" statute, establishes a procedure for obtaining the early dismissal of a claim that seeks to impose liability on individuals for exercising their constitutional right of petition. This procedure, referred to as a "special motion to dismiss," has become a frequent subject of our jurisprudence since § 59H was first enacted. This is largely attributable to the open-ended language of the statute, which reaches any claim "based on" a broadly defined category of petitioning activity, and the advantages afforded to a party who successfully invokes it -- including the dismissal of adverse claims and an award of attorney’s fees. Indeed, the mere act of filing such a motion serves to automatically stay discovery and prioritize the resolution of the motion over other matters in the case.

Although these powerful procedural protections were designed to target meritless suits brought to discourage individuals from exercising their constitutional right of petition, the statute has been regularly invoked in attempts to dismiss a wide array of other claims concerning conduct far afield of the petitioning activity that the Legislature originally sought to protect. To align the statutory language and purpose, and address its potential misapplication, in Duracraft Corp. v. Holmes Prods., Corp., 427 Mass. 156, 167-168, 691 N.E.2d 935 (1998) (Duracraft), we adopted a construction of the anti-SLAPP statute that would exclude its applicability to claims with a substantial basis other than or in addition to an individual’s exercise of the right of petition.

The Duracraft framework governed our jurisprudence for nearly twenty years. However, out of concern that the "problematic sweep of the statute" had continued to invite its misapplication to meritorious claims, this court in Blanchard v. Steward Carney Hosp., Inc., 477 Mass. 141, 155, 159, 75 N.E.3d 21 (2017) (Blanchard I), and Blanchard v. Steward Carney Hosp., Inc., 483 Mass, 200, 206-207, 130 N.E.3d 1242 (2019) (Blanchard II), substantially augmented the Duracraft framework, requiring that the factual allegations supporting challenged claims be parsed, so as to allow portions of such claims to be dismissed, and inserting an additional multifactor test to evaluate the subjective motivation of those bringing the challenged claims.

The resulting complexity of this augmented framework, which also strays from the statutory language, has led to addition- al time and expense for litigants seeking to bring, or defend against, special motions to dismiss and has placed an enormous burden on motion judges in their efforts to decide such motions. These pragmatic difficulties detract from one of the principal purposes of § 59H: to obtain the expeditious dismissal of meritless claims that are based on petitioning alone.

The nature, scope, duration, and complexity of the instant case exemplify the need to clarify and simplify decision-making in this area. It concerns various claims arising out of the unsuccessful efforts of the Todesca litigants (the defendants and proponents of the special motion to dismiss in this case), before various administrative and judicial bodies, to block the Bristol litigants (the plaintiffs and opponents of the special motion to dismiss) from obtaining approval to construct and operate an asphalt plant that would rival their own. After the last of these challenges failed in 2020, the Bristol litigants brought suit, asserting that the Todesca litigants’ legal maneuvers amounted to abuse of process and violated G. L. c. 93A, §§ 4 and 11. In response, the Todesca litigants filed a special motion to dismiss under § 59H, asserting that their legal efforts to block a competitor’s asphalt plant constituted a legitimate exercise of their right of petition under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, for which they could not be sued. The special motion was denied, and the Todesca litigants pursued an interlocutory appeal. The matter is now before us three and one-half years after this lawsuit first began.

Recognizing that our existing framework for analyzing special motions to dismiss under § 59H has not provided an efficient or practical solution to the problem it was designed to address, we thus conclude that a simplification of our existing anti-SLAPP framework, and one that hews to the statutory language, is necessary to ensure that the legislative intent behind the statute is not undermined by its misapplication. Toward that end, we set forth a revised anti-SLAPP framework in the instant opinion, along with an Appendix designed to provide guidance on its practical administration.

Under this simplified anti-SLAPP framework, we eliminate the additional analysis set forth in Blanchard I and Blanchard II and return to the traditional approach set out in Duracraft. We also seek to provide more detail on how to determine whether petitioning activity is devoid of any reasonable factual support or arguable basis in law. Finally, we clarify that the appropriate standard of review for a ruling on a special motion to dismiss is de novo, rather than for an abuse of discretion. Applying this simplified framework to the instant case, we conclude that the Todesca litigants’ petitioning activities were not entitled to the procedural protections of § 59H.⁴

1. Factual, background. We summarize the facts as derived from the pleadings and attached documentary evidence before the Superior Court, reserving certain facts for our discussion below. See G. L. c. 231, § 59H; Dickey v. Warren, 75 Mass. App. Ct. 585, 588 n.5, 915 N.E.2d 584 (2009), cert. denied, 560 U.S. 926, 130 S.Ct. 3333, 176 L.Ed.2d 1223 (2010).

The Todesca litigants -- the special motion proponents in the instant suit -- own and/or operate an asphalt plant at 83 Kings Highway in the town of Rochester (town), within an area that has been zoned for industrial uses since 1969.⁵ The area where the asphalt plant is located also houses a concrete block manufacturing plant, a building material deconstruction facility, and several waste facilities. The Bristol litigants -- the special motion opponents in this suit -- are business competitors who sought to open their own asphalt plant on an adjacent parcel of land in the same industrial zone, beginning in late 2010.⁶ The Todesca litigants subsequently launched a series of administrative and legal challenges to the Bristol litigants’ efforts to obtain regulatory approval for the construction and operation of the proposed plant. Each one is outlined, in turn, below.

a. Challenges to site plan approval. In late 2010, the Bristol litigants submitted a site plan review application to the town’s planning board (planning board) for their proposed asphalt plaint. On May 24, 2011, the planning board issued a unanimous written decision in which it determined that the proposed plant was a permitted use in the industrial district, and approved the site plan subject to forty-three conditions designed to regulate anticipated noise, dust, fumes, and visual and traffic impacts relating to the project. Paul Todesca and abutters to the site appealed from the planning board’s decision to the town’s zoning board of appeals (zoning board). The zoning board unanimously affirmed the site plan approval. Albert and Paul Todesca (Todescas), as trustees of Todesca Realty Trust, along with abutters, then pursued a further appeal in the Land Court, pursuant to G. L. c. 40A, § 17.

In the Land Court, the Todescas argued that the site plan approval did not comply with local bylaws because of the anticipated effect that the proposed plant would have on noise levels, property values, and traffic in the area. Upon the parties’ cross motions for partial summary judgment concerning the Todescas’ noise-related arguments, the Land Court judge ruled in favor of the Bristol litigants, concluding that the noise issue had reasonably been addressed by conditions contained within the site plan approval.

After a trial on the Todescas’ remaining claims, the Land Court judge issued a written memorandum of decision containing various findings of fact and entered judgment in favor of the Bristol litigants. The judge concluded that the proposed asphalt plant constituted a permitted use in the industrial district and that the evidence did not "support a finding that there are problems with the site plan that have not been reasonably addressed or that re- quire conditions beyond those" already imposed by the planning board.

Thereafter, the Appeals Court affirmed the judgment of the...