Maine: Anti-SLAPP Laws

The short answer

Maine has a modern anti-SLAPP law, but it's a recent replacement, not a
long-standing one. The old statute, former 14 M.R.S. § 556, dated to 1995
and covered only lawsuits over "petitioning" activity aimed at government.
The legislature repealed it and enacted the Uniform Public Expression
Protection Act (UPEPA), now at 14 M.R.S. §§ 731-742, effective January 1,
2025. UPEPA covers a much broader range of speech, adds Maine-specific
protections for discrimination complaints and sexual-harassment
disclosures, and gives a defendant a "special motion for expedited relief"
that must be filed within 60 days of service. Filing the motion
automatically pauses discovery. The court must throw out the claim with
prejudice unless the plaintiff can show a real case on every element. A
prevailing defendant gets mandatory fees, and a defendant who loses the
motion can appeal immediately, as a matter of right.

Requirements one by one

Governing law

Maine's current anti-SLAPP statute is the Uniform Public Expression
Protection Act (UPEPA), 14 M.R.S. §§ 731-742, part of Title 14's chapter
on civil procedure. The legislature enacted it by PL 2023, c. 626 (it
became law without the Governor's signature in April 2024), effective
January 1, 2025, and it applies only to lawsuits filed on or after that
date. A 2025 amendment, PL 2025, c. 403, added new categories of
protected activity involving sexual assault, sexual harassment, and
discrimination communications. The prior statute, former § 556, had been
in place since 1995 and was repealed by the same 2023 act; it covered
only a much narrower category of "petitioning" activity aimed at
government. If your case was filed before January 1, 2025, the older,
narrower law — not this page — governs it.

What speech or conduct is protected

UPEPA covers a lawsuit based on: a communication in a legislative,
executive, judicial, administrative, or other governmental proceeding; a
communication on an issue under consideration or review by such a
proceeding; or your exercise of the right to free speech, free press,
assembly, petition, or association on a matter of public concern. Maine
added two categories the standard UPEPA text doesn't include elsewhere:
written or oral statements made in a Maine Human Rights Act or Title IX
discrimination complaint, and — added in 2025 — a good-faith
communication about an incident of sexual assault, sexual harassment,
sexual misconduct, cyberbullying, or discrimination you experienced,
whether or not you ever filed a formal complaint about it.

The special motion procedure

The vehicle is called a "special motion for expedited relief to
dismiss." You must file it within 60 days of being served with the
complaint, or later if you can show good cause. Filing it automatically
stays discovery and essentially all other proceedings between you and
the plaintiff. That stay continues through any appeal of the ruling on
the motion. A court can still allow narrow, specifically-justified
discovery during the stay if a party shows the information is genuinely
necessary and not otherwise available, and the case can be advanced on
the court's docket for priority handling.

Burden of proof

The court must dismiss the claim with prejudice if three things are all
true: the moving party shows the Act applies to the claim; the
responding party fails to show one of the Act's exemptions applies; and
either the responding party fails to establish a prima facie case on
every essential element of its own claim, or the moving party separately
shows the claim fails to state a cause of action at all, or that there's
no real factual dispute and the moving party wins as a matter of law.
The court decides all of this using the same kind of record it would use
on a summary-judgment motion — pleadings, the motion papers, and
admissible evidence, not live testimony.

Attorney's fees

A prevailing moving party is entitled to mandatory fees: the statute
says the court "shall award" court costs, attorney's fees, and
reasonable litigation expenses related to the motion. That's a
strengthening from the old 1995 law, which only let a court "may award"
fees at its discretion. The mirror-image protection is narrower: a
responding party who wins the motion only gets fees if the court
separately finds the motion itself was frivolous or filed solely to
delay the case.

Right to appeal

The statute expressly gives a losing moving party the right to appeal a
denial — in whole or in part — as a matter of right, without waiting for
the rest of the case to finish. This is a deliberate fix: the old 1995
law never addressed appealability at all, forcing the Law Court to
recognize an interlocutory-appeal right through case law (most notably
Schelling v. Lindell, 2008 ME 59, building on Morse Bros. v. Webster,
2001 ME 70), and that case law's own standard for evaluating the motion
itself shifted more than once over the following decade. The new statute
puts the appeal right directly in the text instead of leaving it to
judicial interpretation.

Exemptions

Three kinds of claims fall outside the Act no matter how speech-related
they look: a claim against a government unit or its employee or agent
acting in an official capacity; a claim brought BY a government unit or
employee, in an official capacity, to enforce a law protecting against
an imminent threat to public health or safety; and a claim against
someone primarily in the business of selling or leasing goods or
services, when the claim arises from a communication tied to that
person's own sale or lease. That last, commercial-speech exemption
doesn't reach dramatic, literary, musical, political, journalistic, or
artistic works, so media and creative content stay protected even when
the speaker is in a "selling" business.

What trips people up

The filing date determines which law applies. A lawsuit filed before
January 1, 2025 is governed by the old, much narrower 1995 statute
limited to petitioning activity — not the broader current law described
on this page.

The 2025 sexual-harassment and discrimination categories are new and
untested. Because they were added by a 2025 amendment, there's little
or no case law yet interpreting exactly how broadly they reach.

Winning the motion on one claim doesn't end the whole case. The
statute lets a court dismiss "part of a cause of action," so other
claims in the same lawsuit can keep moving forward on their normal
schedule even after a partial win.

Common questions

Does this cover a lawsuit over a comment I made at a public hearing
opposing a local development project? Yes — that's a communication in
or connected to a governmental proceeding, squarely within the statute's
first category.

I disclosed sexual harassment I experienced but never filed a formal
complaint. Am I still protected if I'm sued for it? Under the 2025
amendment, a good-faith communication about an experienced incident of
sexual assault, sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, cyberbullying, or
discrimination is covered whether or not a complaint was ever filed, as
long as you had a reasonable basis to file one.

If my motion is denied, do I have to wait until the case is fully over
to appeal? No. The statute gives you an appeal as of right from a
denial, in whole or in part, and that appeal automatically keeps the
discovery stay in place while it's pending.

Statutes and sources

• 14 M.R.S. § 733(2)-(3) — "this subchapter applies to a cause of
  action asserted in a civil action against a person based on the
  person's: A. Communication in a legislative, executive, judicial,
  administrative or other governmental proceeding... This subchapter
  does not apply to a cause of action asserted: A. Against a governmental
  unit or an employee or agent of a governmental unit acting or
  purporting to act in an official capacity..." Source:
  https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/14/title14sec733.html (accessed
  2026-07-05).
• 14 M.R.S. § 734 — "Not later than 60 days after a party is served
  with a complaint... the party may file a special motion for expedited
  relief to dismiss the cause of action or part of the cause of action."
  Source: https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/14/title14sec734.html
  (accessed 2026-07-05).
• 14 M.R.S. § 735(1)-(2) — "on the filing of a motion under section
  734: A. All other proceedings between the moving party and responding
  party, including discovery and a pending hearing or motion, are
  stayed... A stay under subsection 1 remains in effect until entry of an
  order ruling on the motion under section 734 and expiration of the time
  under the Maine Rules of Appellate Procedure for the moving party to
  appeal the order." Source:
  https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/14/title14sec735.html (accessed
  2026-07-05).
• 14 M.R.S. § 738(1) — "the court shall dismiss with prejudice a
  cause of action, or part of a cause of action, if: A. The moving party
  establishes under section 733, subsection 2 that this Act applies...
  and C. Either: (1) The responding party fails to establish a prima
  facie case as to each essential element of the cause of action; or (2)
  The moving party establishes that... There is no genuine issue as to
  any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a
  matter of law..." Source:
  https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/14/title14sec738.html (accessed
  2026-07-05).
• 14 M.R.S. § 739 — "A moving party may appeal as a matter of right
  from an order denying, in whole or in part, a motion under section
  734." Source: https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/14/title14sec739.html
  (accessed 2026-07-05).
• 14 M.R.S. § 740 — "the court shall award court costs, attorney's
  fees and reasonable litigation expenses related to the motion: 1. If
  moving party prevails. To the moving party if the moving party
  prevails on the motion; or 2. If responding party prevails. To the
  responding party if the responding party prevails on the motion and
  the court finds that the motion was frivolous or filed solely with
  intent to delay the proceeding." Source:
  https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/14/title14sec740.html (accessed
  2026-07-05).