UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT RELEVANT GROUP, LLC, a No. 23-55574 Delaware limited liability company; 1541 WILCOX HOTEL, LLC, a D.C. No. Delaware limited liability company; 2:19-cv-05019- 6516 TOMMIE HOTEL, LLC, a PSG-KS Delaware limited liability company; 6421 SELMA WILCOX HOTEL, LLC, a California limited liability OPINION company,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v. STEPHEN NOURMAND, AKA Saeed Nourmand an individual; SUNSET LANDMARK INVESTMENT, LLC, a California limited liability company; NOURMAND AND ASSOCIATES, a California corporation; DOES, 1-10,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Philip S. Gutierrez, District Judge, Presiding 2 RELEVANT GROUP, LLC V. NOURMAND

Argued and Submitted June 3, 2024 Pasadena, California

Filed September 5, 2024 Before: MILAN D. SMITH, JR. and BRIDGET S. BADE, Circuit Judges, and SIDNEY A. FITZWATER, * District Judge.

Opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.

SUMMARY **

Noerr-Pennington Doctrine

The panel affirmed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Defendants, property developers who operate the Hollywood Athletic Club, in an action in which Plaintiffs, rival property developers who own three hotels, alleged that Defendants abused the processes available under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to extort funds from Plaintiffs in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The district court held that the Noerr-Pennington doctrine—a rule that requires courts to construe statutes to avoid burdening conduct that implicates the Petition Clause * The Honorable Sidney A. Fitzwater, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas, sitting by designation. ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. RELEVANT GROUP, LLC V. NOURMAND 3

of the First Amendment—protected Defendants from statutory liability for engaging in petitioning activity challenging several of Plaintiffs’ proposed hotel projects using the CEQA framework. As a threshold matter, the panel held that District Judge Gutierrez did not abuse his discretion in sua sponte reconsidering the denial of summary judgment by District Judge Wright, from whom the case was transferred before trial, where Judge Gutierrez explained how Judge Wright’s decision was clearly erroneous and how manifest injustice would occur should the decision be allowed to stand. The panel held that the district court did not err in holding that Defendants’ petitioning activities were protected under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine. In determining whether the sham litigation exception to the doctrine applies, the district court properly applied the framework set forth in Pro. Real Est. Invs., Inc. v. Columbia Pictures Indus., Inc., 508 U.S. 49 (1993) (PREI) (sham litigation exception applies where a lawsuit is objectively baseless and brought with an unlawful motive). In applying the PREI framework, the district court did not err in concluding that Defendants’ actions pursuant to CEQA were not objectively baseless and therefore did not fall within the sham litigation exception. The panel did not review evidence suggesting that Defendants had an improper purpose because courts may examine a litigant’s subjective motivation only if the challenged litigation is objectively baseless. And because the district court correctly held that Defendants’ CEQA actions did not fall within the sham litigation exception, the panel did not need to reach Defendants’ other arguments in order to affirm the district court. 4