Maryland: Anti-SLAPP Laws

The short answer

Maryland has had an anti-SLAPP statute since 2004, but it's widely considered
one of the weakest in the country. It grants civil immunity for
communicating with a government body or the public on a matter of public
concern — broad, on its face — but only if the lawsuit against you was also
brought in bad faith and intended to inhibit those rights, an unusual
double requirement most other states don't impose. The tools it gives you
are limited too: no automatic discovery stay, no fee-shifting, and no right
to appeal. Lawmakers have tried to replace it with a much stronger law every
year for several years running, and each attempt has stalled in committee.

Requirements one by one

Governing law

Maryland's anti-SLAPP statute, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-807, was enacted in
2004 and amended once, in 2010; that text is still current. Since at least
2020, legislators have introduced a bill nearly every session to repeal it
and replace it with Maryland's own version of the Uniform Public Expression
Protection Act — most recently House Bill 650 and its cross-filed companion
Senate Bill 251 in the 2026 session. Both bills stalled after their
committee hearings and died with the session; none of these reform attempts
has yet reached a floor vote in both chambers.

What speech or conduct is protected

The statute's definition of protected communication is broad: reporting on,
commenting on, ruling on, challenging, opposing, or otherwise exercising
First Amendment or Maryland Declaration of Rights rights, made to a
government body at any level or to the public at large, on any matter
within a government body's authority or any issue of public concern. The
catch is that the statute doesn't just ask whether your speech was
protected — it separately defines what makes the lawsuit against you a
"SLAPP suit" in the first place, and that definition requires the suit
itself to have been brought in bad faith and intended to inhibit your
rights. Maryland's Court of Special Appeals has held that "bad faith" here
means the same thing it means under the general Maryland Rule governing
sanctions for frivolous litigation: pursuing a case vexatiously, for
harassment, unreasonable delay, or other improper reasons.

The motion to dismiss or stay

You have two options, and the statute doesn't require you to pick just one.
You can move to dismiss the alleged SLAPP suit, in which case the court must
hold a hearing "as soon as practicable" — a mandatory but undefined
timeline. Or you can move to stay all court proceedings until whatever
matter you communicated about (a zoning case, a licensing decision, an
investigation) is itself resolved. Neither motion comes with an automatic
discovery freeze; the statute doesn't provide one, and any pause in
discovery only happens if the court actually grants your stay motion.

Burden of proof

There's no burden-shifting test written into this statute. Instead, you (the
defendant) carry the whole load of proving the case in front of you actually
meets the statute's own definition of a SLAPP suit: that it was brought in
bad faith, that it's materially related to your protected communication, and
that it's intended to inhibit (or does inhibit) your constitutional rights.
Maryland courts have allowed this to be decided at the motion-to-dismiss
stage using the plaintiff's own complaint plus facts a court can take
judicial notice of, without waiting for a full trial.

Attorney's fees

Section 5-807 says nothing about attorney's fees or costs for either side.
If you win your motion, this statute alone doesn't get you a fee award —
you'd need a separate basis, like a request for sanctions under Maryland's
general bad-faith-litigation rule, which is a different, generally-available
tool rather than something built into the anti-SLAPP statute itself.

Right to appeal

The statute is silent on appeals too. There's no provision letting you
immediately appeal a denial (or a grant) of the motion. A losing party would
have to rely on Maryland's ordinary, narrow exceptions to the final-judgment
rule if they wanted review before the case otherwise concluded.

Exemptions

The statute names no exemptions or carve-outs. Instead, § 5-807(e) says the
section applies "notwithstanding any other law or rule" and doesn't take
away any other remedy a defendant already has — it's meant to add a
protection, not to narrow anything else available to you.

What trips people up

The "bad faith" requirement is a real, separate hurdle — not just a label
for the whole statute. Unlike most other states, where showing your
activity was protected is most of the battle, Maryland also makes you prove
the lawsuit itself was pursued vexatiously or for an improper purpose. A
plaintiff who genuinely (if wrongly) believes their claim has merit can be
much harder to beat under this framework than under a broader statute.

Filing the motion doesn't automatically freeze discovery. Several other
states stop all discovery the moment a special motion is filed. Maryland's
statute only gives you the option to separately move for a stay, and the
court still has to grant it — there's no automatic pause built into filing
the dismissal motion itself.

Don't expect your fees paid just because you win. Anti-SLAPP laws in
many other states make fee awards to a prevailing defendant mandatory.
Maryland's doesn't address fees at all; any fee request has to come from a
different, general rule, and it isn't guaranteed the way it is in states
whose statutes speak to it directly.

This law has been on the reform chopping block for years — watch for
change, but don't assume it yet. A broader replacement has been introduced
repeatedly since 2020 and has died in committee every time, most recently in
2026. If a future session finally passes it, expect a materially different,
much stronger law with fee-shifting, an automatic stay, and a real burden
shift to the plaintiff.

Common questions

Does filing an anti-SLAPP motion stop the other side from taking my
deposition right away?
Not automatically. You have to separately ask the court to stay all
proceedings under § 5-807(d)(2), and the court has to grant that request —
filing the dismissal motion alone doesn't pause discovery by itself.

What exactly counts as "bad faith" under Maryland's law?
Maryland's courts have said it means the same thing as under the state's
general rule on sanctions for frivolous litigation: pursuing a case
vexatiously, for harassment, for unreasonable delay, or for another improper
reason — not simply that the plaintiff turned out to be wrong.

If I win my motion, do I get my attorney's fees paid?
Not under this statute — it doesn't mention fees at all. You'd have to look
to a separate, general Maryland rule on sanctions for bad-faith litigation,
which isn't guaranteed the way fee-shifting is in many other states'
anti-SLAPP laws.

Can I appeal right away if the court denies my motion?
No. Maryland's statute doesn't create any right to an immediate appeal —
you'd generally have to wait for a final judgment in the case, unless a rare
general exception to that rule happens to apply.

Statutes and sources

• Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-807(a)-(b) — "In this section,
  \"SLAPP suit\" means a strategic lawsuit against public participation. A
  lawsuit is a SLAPP suit if it is: (1) Brought in bad faith against a party
  who has communicated with a federal, State, or local government body or
  the public at large to report on, comment on, rule on, challenge, oppose,
  or in any other way exercise rights under the First Amendment of the U.S.
  Constitution or Article 10, Article 13, or Article 40 of the Maryland
  Declaration of Rights regarding any matter within the authority of a
  government body or any issue of public concern; (2) Materially related to
  the defendant's communication; and (3) Intended to inhibit or inhibits the
  exercise of rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution or
  Article 10, Article 13, or Article 40 of the Maryland Declaration of
  Rights." Source:
  https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/StatuteText?article=gcj&section=5-807
  (accessed 2026-07-05).
• Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-807(c) — "A defendant in a SLAPP
  suit is not civilly liable for communicating with a federal, State, or
  local government body or the public at large, if the defendant, without
  constitutional malice, reports on, comments on, rules on, challenges,
  opposes, or in any other way exercises rights under the First Amendment of
  the U.S. Constitution or Article 10, Article 13, or Article 40 of the
  Maryland Declaration of Rights regarding any matter within the authority
  of a government body or any issue of public concern." Source:
  https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/StatuteText?article=gcj&section=5-807
  (accessed 2026-07-05).
• Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-807(d) — "A defendant in an
  alleged SLAPP suit may move to: (1) Dismiss the alleged SLAPP suit, in
  which case the court shall hold a hearing on the motion to dismiss as soon
  as practicable; or (2) Stay all court proceedings until the matter about
  which the defendant communicated to the government body or the public at
  large is resolved." Source:
  https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/StatuteText?article=gcj&section=5-807
  (accessed 2026-07-05).
• Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-807(e) — "This section: (1) Is
  applicable to SLAPP suits notwithstanding any other law or rule; and (2)
  Does not diminish any equitable or legal right or remedy otherwise
  available to a defendant in a SLAPP suit." Source:
  https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/StatuteText?article=gcj&section=5-807
  (accessed 2026-07-05).