Wednesday, May 27, 2026
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Court of Appeal:
Malicious Prosecution Action Survives Anti-SLAPP Motion
Underlying Suit, Founded on Contract, Continued Even After Client Admitted He Forged Signature of Other Party
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
The Court of Appeal for this district has held that a judge did not err in denying a special motion to strike in an action for malicious prosecution where, in the underlying lawsuit, a Century City attorney and his law firm continued to represent a man who was suing for declaratory relief predicated on a breach of contract even though their client had admitted in a criminal proceeding that he had forged the signature of the other purported party.
Justice Dorothy Kim of Div. Five authored the unpublished opinion, filed Friday, affirming an order by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Shirley K. Watkins finding that the malicious prosecution suit by Reuven Justin Cypers and others against attorney Lincoln D. Bandlow and the Law Offices of Lincoln Bandlow does not constitute a SLAPP.
On Nov. 20, 2017, Bandlow, then with Fox Rothschild LLP, along with another then-member of that firm, Rom Bar-Nassim, took over the representation of Joseph R. Granatelli in the underlying action, filed the previous month. Granatelli was suing for a declaration in connection with respective rights stemming from a contract allegedly signed by Cypers.
However, on Jan. 28, 2019, Granatelli pled no contest to felony identity theft, admitting he had forged Cypers’s signature.
Bandlow left Fox Rothschild LLP in April 2019, taking various clients of that firm with him in setting up his own practice. Those clients included Granatelli.
In the face of their client’s admission that he had forged Cypers’s signature, Bandlow and his firm took the stance that even if the supposed contract attached to the pleading was bogus, another valid contract to the same effect was in existence. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Huey P. Cotton on Dec. 13, 2019, ordered the immediate complaint stricken but “with leave to amend to allege a lost or missing contract.”
Bandlow and his firm did file a first amended complaint (“FAC”), but with no reference to an alleged valid contract mirroring terms of the discredited one. (They also filed an amended complaint in a breach-of-contract lawsuit that is not the subject of the appeal decided on Friday.)
Cotton’s Ruling
On Sept. 29, 2020, Cotton sustained a demurrer to the FAC, without leave to amend, saying:
“Defendant argues that the FAC is a sham pleading because it omits the forged agreement between the parties. In this pleading…no clever attempt was made with regard to representing the forgery as authentic. In the original complaint plaintiff makes the bald statement that the exhibit attached to the original pleading was the written agreement between the parties. In the FAC…the plaintiff simply omits reference to the exhibit. There is no explanation as to why it was left off. This is a sham pleading.”
Following entry of a judgment of dismissal, the filing of a notice of appeal, and a settlement among the litigants, the lawsuit for malicious prosecution was filed on Feb. 22, 2023, against Bandlow and his firm by Cypers and other erstwhile defendants.
When the defendants in the malicious-prosecution action filed an anti-SLAPP motion, under Code of Civil Procedure §425.16, the plaintiffs acknowledged that the first prong of the statute—that the action springs from protected conduct—was satisfied, but maintained that they met their burden under the second prong by showing minimal merit. Watkins agreed in a June 25, 2024 order, denying the motion.
Appellants’ Contention
Arguing for a reversal, the defendants set forth in their opening brief:
“The 6/25/24 Order erred in finding a lack of probable cause solely because Granatelli admitted to attaching a forged contract (the “Purported Document”) to the complaint in the Underlying Action and Appellants continued to maintain the Underlying Action.
“Appellants did not rely on the Purported Document in maintaining the Underlying Action.”
The brief explains that the underlying action sought a determination as to whether certain moneys belonged to a corporation jointly owned by Cypers and Granatelli or to a third party and that “the Purported Document was not required to determine which accounts belonged” to which entity.
Bandlow’s Declaration
The brief, relying on Bandlow’s declaration under penalty of perjury filed in support of the anti-SLAPP motion, says:
“On December 4, 2018, Bandlow conducted a phone call with Granatelli and his criminal defense attorney, Diana Aizman. Granatelli prefaced the call by saying that it was not going to be an easy conversation and Bandlow would not like what he was going to hear. During the call, Granatelli admitted to Bandlow for the first time that he forged Cypers’ signature…on the Purported Document and apologized for not telling Bandlow the truth….
“Granatelli went on to say that it was not a situation where he had invented an agreement out of whole cloth and then just attached Cypers’ signature.”
The brief says that the client explained that a contract signed by him and Cypers had existed; that he believed Cypers had stolen his copy; and that he recreated the contract. The lawyer declared that after thinking it over, he decided to continue his representation of Granatelli, noting that “given Cypers’ criminal history” in a fraud case and false statements Cypers supposedly made to sheriff’s deputies, he “had serious doubts as to the credibility of Cypers’ version of events.”
Kim’s Opinion
In her opinion affirming Watkin’s order, Kim wrote:
“Even if defendants had probable cause to believe that some agreement existed between Granatelli and Cypers, the underlying action they maintained was not premised on some agreement, but on a particular agreement, namely, the putative contract that was attached as an exhibit to the complaint, And. by the time defendant Bandlow substituted in as counsel for Granatelli, Cypers’s attorneys had provided Granatelli with evidence that the putative contract was a forgery. Yet defendants continued to prosecute the underlying action, including by seeking to continue the trial. Thus, defendants’ contention that they did not maintain an action premised on the putative contract is meritless.
“Moreover, in April 2019, defendants filed the first amended complaints in the breach of contract action and the underlying action. Although defendants contend that the first amended complaints did not rely on the authenticity of the putative contract, that contention ignores the application of the sham pleading doctrine.”
Kim explained that where an amended complaint varies from the initial pleading, with no explanation of why allegations were dropped, those allegations may be read into the revised document.
“Defendants, as Granatelli’s counsel, therefore knowingly filed a first amended complaint premised on a forged contract,” the justice wrote. “No reasonable attorney would find a declaratory relief claim based on a forged document, as here, to be tenable.”
Kim said that because Bandlow and his firm “continued to prosecute the underlying action, which was premised on a forged contract, even after Granatelli pled guilty to forgery,” Cypers and his co-plaintiffs “have demonstrated minimal merit for the malice element of their malicious prosecution claim.”
The case is Cypers v. Bandlow, B34065.
Bloomberg News reported on May 10, 2021 that Bandlow “abruptly departed his old law firm, one of the 100 largest in the country, in May 2019 after he filed hundreds of lawsuits on behalf of porn production company Strike 3 Holdings LLC that alleged rampant theft of its movies by internet users,” remarking:
“The type of mass copyright infringement litigation pursued by Bandlow and Strike 3 has gained a reputation as ‘copyright trolling,’ in which the lawyers take advantage of the high cost to defend lawsuits and the embarrassment of being named as stealing porn to secure quick settlements.”
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