Wednesday, September 9, 2026

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Court of Appeal:

Woman’s Allegations Posted on YouTube Are Unprotected

Same Assertions, Contained in Court Papers, Do Not Give Rise to Liability, Opinion Says

By a MetNews Staff Writer

The Sixth District Court of Appeal has held that while an anti-SLAPP motion was properly granted in connection with allegations a woman made about her brother in an action to have a domestic violence retaining order imposed on him, videos posted on YouTube, accessible by the public, containing those accusations are not protected speech.

Causes of action based on the YouTube postings were ordered reinstated in an unpublished opinion filed Friday. Justice Cynthia C. Lie authored it.

Defendant Sandra Copas had brought an action on Dec. 10, 2019, seeking a restraining order against her brother, Walter Eugene Neal Jr. On April 7, 2022, she uploaded two videos to YouTube, one titled, “HELP ME I’m SCARED” and the other labeled, “4/1/22 HELP I’m So Scared I’m Shaking.”

Links to those initial videos were provided in her pleading. Subsequently, she uploaded four more videos to YouTube.

Sister’s Declaration

Copas insisted in a March 1, 2024 declaration, in response to the brother’s December 2023 action against her—as well as her husband, Bryan Copas—for defamation and other torts:

“I believed Video #1 and #2 were posted privately on YouTube, and I even stated as such in the pleading. I state, ‘These videos are confidential. It is only to be used for the 4/21/22 hearing….’ ”

She said a third video was uploaded by her on Aug. 19, 2022, for use in a Sept. 1 hearing. Three more were posted to YouTube on Sept. 9, purportedly to assist the local police department.

“When I learned the public could access these YouTube videos,” Copas said, “I immediately took the videos down.”

Her action for a restraining order was dismissed by her prior to her brother bringing his action against her.

Motion Granted

Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Amber Rosen on June 27, 2024, granted the defendants’ special motion to strike pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute, Code of Civil Procedure §425.16, as to all causes of action. Lie’s opinion reverses that order, instructing that, on remand, it be granted only as to claims not tied to the public posting of the videos.

The justice declared that Neal’s claims stemming from the 2019 proceeding against him are based on protected activity—the first prong pf §425.16—but fail to meet the test of the second prong: minimal merit. But, she said, the public posting of the videos is not protected.

Lie wrote:

“Defendants contend that the videos are protected as statements in connection with litigation or police reports. Not so. Defendants’ theory overlooks the different audiences each publication of the videos targeted. That publication to the court or to law enforcement may have been protected in some contexts does not establish that all publication is protected or that the content of the videos enjoys absolute protection. Unprotected defamatory statements broadcast to the public at large do not acquire protection by the mere act of later publishing them to a court. To hold otherwise would seem to doom any defamation claim.”

Public Interest Lacking

Lie went on to say:

“We accept that defendants’ transmission of the YouTube videos to the court or another person having some interest in the litigation is protected, but the posting of the videos to the general public on a public YouTube channel is not. Nor has there been any showing that the public has some interest in the litigation.”

She said that while the “defendants may invoke Civil Code section 47.1,” the litigation privilege, “to defend this suit on the merits,” it remains that “the litigation privilege and the anti-SLAPP statute are distinct” and the former “does not establish” the defendants’ “entitlement to protection under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16.”

The case is Walter N. v. Sandra C., H052459.