Siemens Industry, Inc. v. GPEC, LLC

── Siemens Industry, Inc. v. GPEC, LLC ── Court: District of Columbia Court of Appeals Date: April 30, 2026 Category: General Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the Atlantic and Maryland Reporters. Users are requested to notify the Clerk of the Court of any formal errors so that corrections may be made before the bound volumes go to press. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS No. 25-CV-0284 SIEMENS INDUSTRY, INC., APPELLANT, V. GPEC, LLC, APPELLEE. Appeal from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (2024-CAB-004551) (Hon. Ebony M. Scott, Trial Judge) (Argued March 18, 2026 Decided April 30, 2026) Preston L. Zarlock, with whom Matthew M. May was on the brief, for appellant. J. Chapman Petersen, with whom Patrick Corish was on the brief, for appellee. Before EASTERLY and SHANKER, Associate Judges, and RUIZ, Senior Judge. EASTERLY, Associate Judge: Under the District’s Anti-SLAPP statute, D.C. Code § 16-5501 et seq., a defendant to a SLAPP, i.e., a “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” may extricate themself from litigation on an expedited timetable by filing a special motion to dismiss. In order to avail themself of this procedural tool, the defendant must first make a prima facie showing that the act for  2 which they are being sued is an “act in furtherance of the right of advocacy on issues of public interest.” D.C. Code § 16-5502(b). Such an act includes “[a]ny . . . expression or expressive conduct that involves . . . communicating views to members of the public in connection with an issue of public interest.” D.C. Code § 16-5501(1)(B). An “[i]ssue of public interest” includes “an issue related to health or safety” but excludes “private interests, such as statements directed primarily toward protecting the speaker’s commercial interests rather than toward commenting on or sharing information about a matter of public significance.” D.C. Code § 16-5501(3) (emphasis added). This court has previously held that “intermixing public and private interests is not disqualifying.” Saudi Am. Pub. Rels. Affs. Comm. v. Inst. for Gulf Affs., 242 A.3d 602, 611 (D.C. 2020). In this case, we consider what it means for a statement with intermixed interests to be “directed primarily toward protecting the speaker’s commercial interests.” D.C. Code § 16-5501(3). We hold that the Anti-SLAPP movant will prevail in making out their prima facie case if the evidence shows that the private interest does not predominate; in other words, it is not disqualifying if the evidence shows that the private and public interests are merely coequal.  3 I. Facts and Procedural History The subject of this appeal is a letter written by a nonlawyer employee of appellant Siemens Industry, Inc. and sent to an array of recipients: Park Southern Apartments, the owner of the property where Siemens had been hired to “supply parts, programming, engineering, and final checkout for the [property’s] fire alarm system”; Marous Brothers Construction (MBC), the general contractor doing work at the property; GPEC, the company MBC had hired to upgrade the onsite electrical systems and that in turn had hired Siemens; and two government entities, the “Washington DC Fire Marshals Office” and “Washington DC Housing Authority.” 1 The letter was written “To Whom It M[a]y Concern” and its subject was identified as “Fire Alarm System Status—Park Southern Apartments—800 Southern Ave SE, 20032.” The text of the letter alerted its recipients to the fact that the wiring at the property “d[id] not meet the specifications for a Fire Alarm System,” detailed the problems with that wiri