A group of Hollywood actors has filed suit against the film actors’ labor union in an attempt to prevent what they view as an unfair and hasty merger with another union for performance artists. After considering it for decades, the leadership of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) had seemed ready to complete the merger with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) by putting the matter to a vote of SAG members. Last week, however, the actors, including Martin Sheen and Ed Harris, filed a complaint in California federal district court against SAG and its officers, claiming the manner in which the merger had been engineered and brought before the members was deceptive, performed without due diligence, violated federal labor law and was a breach of the officers’ fiduciary duty. (More about the suit here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/sag-filing-motion-dismiss-anti-294704; complaint here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/custom/Documents/SAGComplaintFINAL.pdf.)
Despite being brought in federal court, the California anti-SLAPP statute will play a role in the lawsuit. Although three of the four causes of action in the complaint are based on alleged violations of federal labor law, the fourth cause of action is based on California fiduciary duty law. Federal district courts in California apply the California anti-SLAPP statute where the claims are based on California law. Shortly after the complaint was filed, SAG responded by filing a motion to dismiss the federal claims, and an anti-SLAPP motion to strike the fourth claim for breach of fiduciary duty.
The fiduciary duty claims do appear to be based on protected First Amendment activity under the anti-SLAPP law. The suit arises from the SAG officers’ actions in communicating with the SAG membership regarding an issue of obvious interest to a segment of the public, namely, screen actors, the film industry, and many of the actors’ fans.
The question will then become whether the plaintiffs can show a probability of prevailing on the fiduciary duty claim, with admissible evidence. I am not so sure they will be able to do so. Although the burden of plaintiffs under the anti-SLAPP law to show that their claims have merit is quite low, the kinds of acts courts have found to violate fiduciary duty typically involve much more overt acts clearly contrary to the interests of the organization to which the duty is owed, i.e., self-dealing of corporate assets or opportunities. It will be interesting to watch how the court resolves this issue and how the anti-SLAPP law applies in this case.