Sweetwater Union School Dist. v. Gilbane Building Co.

Plaintiff Sweetwater Union High School District filed this action against defendants Gilbane Building Company, The Seville Group, Inc. (SGI), and Gilbane/SGI, a joint venture (the Joint Venture), seeking to void management contracts with all three entities, and to require that they disgorge all sums that Sweetwater paid them under the contracts. Sweetwater alleges that certain representatives of the defendant entities engaged in a "pay to play" scheme with several Sweetwater officials that involved paying for expensive dinners, tickets to entertainment and sporting events, and travel expenses, and making contributions to political campaigns and charities, in an effort to influence the officials to award defendants certain construction contracts. Gilbane and the Joint Venture brought a special motion to strike (or "anti-SLAPP motion"). The trial court denied the motion on the ground that the conduct underlying the complaint was illegal as a matter of law, and therefore, was not protected by the constitutional guarantees of free speech and petition. Defendants argued on appeal that the trial court erred in denying their anti-SLAPP motion. After review, the Court of Appeal concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in considering the evidence proffered by Sweetwater, including signed plea forms and transcripts from grand jury testimony in criminal cases against many of the individuals involved in the alleged "pay to play" contracting scheme. "Such evidence is, in all material respects, indistinguishable from evidence presented by way of a declaration. Based on the proffered evidence, we conclude that Sweetwater has sufficiently demonstrated a probability of prevailing on the merits. We therefore affirm the trial court's denial of defendants' anti-SLAPP motion." View "Sweetwater Union School Dist. v. Gilbane Building Co." on Justia Law