Background
James Lyons, former chairman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, filed a defamation suit against Jim Conroy and several party members after they made statements to the Boston Globe accusing him of discriminating against Asian American Republicans in Boston’s Ward 15 committee membership proceedings. The Globe published an article under the headline “Asian American Republicans accuse state GOP of pursuing discriminatory scheme to disenfranchise them in party elections.” A Superior Court judge allowed the defendants’ special motion to dismiss under Massachusetts’ anti-SLAPP statute, G. L. c. 231, § 59H, and awarded them attorney’s fees. Lyons appealed, arguing that the defendants’ statements were not “petitioning activity” and that, even if they were, the statements were devoid of any reasonable factual basis.
On the petitioning-activity question, Lyons advanced the theory that the defendants’ true purpose was not to rectify ward committee membership but to defame him and defeat his reelection as party chairman. On the arguable-basis question, he relied on a deposition from a consultant the defendants had hired and a deposition from a third party who claimed the consultant asked him to call Lyons a racist—neither of which addressed whether Lyons had, in fact, tried to exclude Asian American Republicans from committee membership.
The Court’s Holding
Affirmed. The Massachusetts Appeals Court (Massing, Ditkoff & Hand, JJ.) held that the defendants’ statements to the Boston Globe constituted protected petitioning activity. Because Massachusetts political parties are required by G. L. c. 52, § 5 to report ward committee membership to the Secretary of State and the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, statements about that membership process are “made to influence, inform, or at the very least, reach governmental bodies—either directly or indirectly.” Blanchard v. Steward Carney Hosp., Inc., 477 Mass. 141, 149 (2017).
The court rejected Lyons’s argument that an allegedly improper motive disqualifies the statements. Under settled precedent, “[t]he motive behind the petitioning activity is irrelevant at this initial stage.” Benoit v. Frederickson, 454 Mass. 148, 152 (2009). Once the defendants established petitioning activity, the burden shifted to Lyons to show—by pleadings and affidavits—that the petitioning was “devoid of any reasonable factual support or any arguable basis in law.” G. L. c. 231, § 59H. The court found that Lyons made no such showing: he never submitted a sworn denial that he had tried to exclude Asian American members, and his affidavit evidence addressed only tangential matters. His further argument that the anti-SLAPP statute cannot protect activity arising from the defendants’ own alleged criminal conduct was raised for the first time on appeal and therefore waived. The court awarded the defendants mandatory appellate attorney’s fees under § 59H but declined to double them, finding the appeal “unpersuasive” but not frivolous.
Key Takeaways
- Under G. L. c. 231, § 59H, statements about political party ward committee membership qualify as petitioning activity because state law requires parties to report that membership to the Secretary of State and OCPF—communications that “at the very least, reach governmental bodies” indirectly. Blanchard, 477 Mass. at 149.
- An ulterior or mixed motive is irrelevant at the threshold stage of anti-SLAPP analysis; once petitioning activity is established, the statute’s burden-shift operates regardless of what the defendant hoped to achieve.
- To defeat a special motion to dismiss, the plaintiff must produce sworn, concrete evidence that the petitioning activity lacked any reasonable factual or legal basis. A failure to submit even a sworn denial of the core accusation is generally fatal. See Bristol Asphalt Co. v. Rochester Bituminous Prods., Inc., 493 Mass. 539, 558 (2024).
- An argument not raised in the Superior Court—here, that the defendants’ activity arose from their own alleged criminal conduct—cannot be raised for the first time on appeal. Rabinowitz v. Schenkman, 103 Mass. App. Ct. 538, 542 (2023).
- Appellate attorney’s fees are mandatory for a prevailing anti-SLAPP defendant under § 59H. Double fees require a finding that the appeal was frivolous under G. L. c. 211A, § 15 and Mass. R. A. P. 25.
Why It Matters
Lyons v. Conroy demonstrates how broadly Massachusetts courts construe “petitioning activity” under the anti-SLAPP statute. The court held that statements to a newspaper about a political party’s internal membership process qualified—because a separate statute requires that membership to be reported to government agencies, the communications indirectly reached governmental bodies. Plaintiffs’ counsel handling defamation or related claims against political actors should carefully examine whether the underlying conduct touches any government-reporting requirement, because that nexus alone can bring ordinary speech within the anti-SLAPP umbrella.
The case is also a strong reminder that the burden-shift in the anti-SLAPP framework heavily favors defendants. Once petitioning activity is established, the plaintiff bears a demanding burden to produce concrete, sworn evidence that the defendant’s statements had no factual or legal basis at all. Here, Lyons offered depositions addressing peripheral matters but never directly denied the discrimination accusation under oath—and that omission proved dispositive. The mandatory appellate fee award under § 59H, combined with the steep burden on appeal, makes litigating a failed anti-SLAPP ruling a high-risk proposition for Massachusetts plaintiffs.