Alabama: Anti-SLAPP Laws

The short answer

Alabama does not have an anti-SLAPP statute. If you're sued over speech,
petitioning, or association activity here, there is no special motion to
dismiss, no automatic stay of discovery, and no SLAPP-specific right to
recover attorney's fees. Your tools are the state's ordinary civil
procedure rules and whatever general defamation-law defenses apply to your
specific facts. No anti-SLAPP bill is currently pending in the legislature.

Requirements one by one

Governing law

There is none currently in force, and none pending. Unlike several
neighboring states that have recently enacted or are actively considering
the Uniform Law Commission's Uniform Public Expression Protection Act
(UPEPA) — Ohio, Idaho, Montana, Iowa, Delaware, Michigan, and South Dakota
all adopted a version of it between January 2025 and March 2026 — Alabama
does not appear on any of the national trackers as having introduced a
comparable bill.

What speech or conduct would be protected

Not applicable — no statutory scope exists. Alabama courts have not
developed a separate constitutional or common-law petitioning-immunity
doctrine to fill the gap either. A defendant sued over speech here relies
on ordinary Alabama defamation-law defenses: truth, non-defamatory opinion,
and, for a public-official or public-figure plaintiff, the requirement that
the plaintiff prove actual malice.

The special motion that doesn't exist

There is no "special motion to strike" or "special motion to dismiss" in
Alabama. A defendant sued over protected speech has to use an ordinary
motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, or a motion for summary
judgment once discovery has developed the record — with no expedited
timeline and no automatic stay of discovery in the meantime.

Burden of proof

Because there is no anti-SLAPP statute, there is no special burden-shifting
test tailored to speech-based claims. A motion to dismiss is judged under
Alabama's ordinary pleading-sufficiency standard, and a motion for summary
judgment is judged under the ordinary genuine-issue-of-material-fact
standard — the same rules that apply in any other civil case.

Attorney's fees

There is no SLAPP-specific fee-shifting rule. Rule 11 of the Alabama Rules
of Civil Procedure, which lets a court sanction an attorney or party for
signing a pleading without a good-faith basis, remains available on the
same terms as in any other lawsuit, but it isn't tailored to SLAPP suits
and requires its own separate showing. A different statute, § 6-5-156.5,
does let a court tax costs and attorney's fees against a private citizen
who brings a frivolous or bad-faith action — but that provision lives
entirely inside Alabama's Drug-Related Nuisance Abatement law (the division
governing private citizen suits to shut down a property used for drug
activity). It has no application to a defamation claim, a speech-based
lawsuit, or any SLAPP-type suit generally.

Right to appeal

There is no special interlocutory appeal right tied to a ruling on a
SLAPP-type motion. Ordinary Alabama rules on which orders are immediately
appealable, and which must wait for a final judgment, apply instead.

Exemptions

Not applicable — there is no statute to carve exemptions from.

What trips people up

A frivolous-lawsuit fee statute exists, but it won't help a SLAPP
defendant. Some secondary sources mention Ala. Code § 6-5-156.5 as if it
were a general tool for penalizing frivolous private lawsuits. Read in its
actual place in the Code, it's part of the Drug-Related Nuisance Abatement
Act and applies only to actions brought under that division — a defendant
sued for defamation over a public-interest comment gets no help from it.

There's no fallback common-law petitioning immunity here. Some
no-statute states still give defendants a narrow constitutional or
common-law defense against retaliatory suits over government-directed
speech. Alabama courts haven't recognized a comparable doctrine; the
reported cases in this area are decided on ordinary defamation grounds
(truth, opinion, actual malice), not any SLAPP-specific immunity.

Alabama has not joined the recent UPEPA wave. Seven states enacted a
version of the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act between January
2025 and March 2026 alone. Alabama is not among them, and no bill appears
to be pending — don't assume momentum elsewhere in the region means a
change is imminent here.

Common questions

If I'm sued over a negative online review I wrote about a local
business, can I get the case thrown out quickly? Not through any
SLAPP-specific procedure — Alabama doesn't have one. You'd need to win an
ordinary motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment on the merits,
which takes longer and doesn't come with an automatic discovery stay or fee
award.

Can I use Alabama's drug-nuisance frivolous-action statute if I'm sued
for defamation? No. Ala. Code § 6-5-156.5 only applies to actions brought
under the Drug-Related Nuisance Abatement Act; it has no bearing on a
speech-based or defamation lawsuit.

Can I use another state's anti-SLAPP law if I'm sued in Alabama?
Generally no — a state's anti-SLAPP statute is that state's own procedural
tool and doesn't travel with you into an Alabama court just because you're
being sued over online speech.

Statutes and sources

• Ala. Code § 6-5-156.5 — "If the action is brought by a private
  citizen and the court finds that the action was frivolous or motivated by
  bad faith, costs and attorney fees may be taxed to the person." Source:
  https://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/title-6/chapter-5/article-9/division-3/section-6-5-156-5/
  (accessed 2026-07-05). Located within Title 6, Chapter 5, Article 9,
  Division 3 — Drug-Related Nuisances — and applies only to actions brought
  under that division, not to defamation or other speech-based claims.