Morgan Banks, et al. v. David H. Hoffman, et al.

The Constitution vests Congress with exclusive legislative authority over the seat of the Nation’s government. Exercising that authority, when Congress established the modern courts of the District of Columbia through the 1970 District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act, it required the Superior Court to conduct its business under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and it vested exclusive authority to modify those Rules in the District’s judiciary. In 1973, the District of Columbia Home Rule Act reaffirmed that mandate, requiring District courts to “continue as provided under” the 1970 Act and prohibiting the D.C. Council from legislating “with respect to any provision of Title 11” of the D.C. Code, which codifies the federal mandate. The en banc decision below violates those Congressional commands. In upholding a Council-enacted anti-SLAPP regime that conflicts with the Federal Rules in multiple ways, the decision recast the plain language of the controlling federal statutes, including by narrowing Congress’s categorical prohibition against Council legislation “with respect to” Title 11. It creates a direct conflict with the D.C. Circuit’s conclusion that the D.C. Anti-SLAPP Act cannot operate in a Federal-Rules court, thereby replicating within the District the national split among circuits about whether anti-SLAPP procedures can live alongside the Federal Rules. The questions presented are: 1. May the D.C. Council impose the D.C. AntiSLAPP Act’s special-motion-to-dismiss procedures in Superior Court notwithstanding Congress’s command (codified in D.C. Code § 11-946) that the court conduct