What the court held

Colorado's anti-SLAPP statute applies in federal court, and at its second step a plaintiff's burden to show a “reasonable likelihood” of prevailing is a “minimal burden” — the probability of prevailing “need not be high.”

The association's Rule 106(a)(4) action was objectively baseless, so the sham exception to Noerr-Pennington petition immunity applied. The court reasoned from the state court's own order, which noted the association “does not cite either section of the City Code in its briefs or how the submitted plans fail to meet the requirements of those Code sections or how the City abused its discretion.” Nothing in that analysis “otherwise suggests that it considered [the association's] arguments … to have been time-worthy” — in contrast to a 2023 Tenth Circuit case where courts wrote lengthy opinions engaging the arguments.

A plaintiff need not show a pattern of baseless, repetitive claims to defeat petition immunity under the sham exception. The court added that a pattern would be satisfied here anyway: a parallel “bond action” was even more clearly baseless, the state court having found the association lacked standing because it “had not identified any of its members, nor … argued that it is a taxpayer,” calling its standing arguments “conclusory.”

A removal is not independently analysable for baselessness: “[a] removed action is not separate from the state action; rather, it is a continuation of it” — analogous to an appeal. So the court did not rest its ruling on the federal action's own baselessness, though it said in a footnote it would have found it baseless and in bad faith.

Disposition: malicious prosecution dismissed (the underlying action was not yet terminated in the movant's favour). Abuse of process and tortious interference survive. The individual member's anti-SLAPP joinder was granted, but his motion otherwise denied — including his challenge to the alter-ego theory. The court found DBG “strongly alleges that [the member], an active member in PPCV, used that ‘single purpose’ corporation to bring two state court actions with the intent of stymying DBG's ability to start developing the affordable housing project,” sufficient to show use of the corporate form “to perpetrate a fraud.”

Five things this means for a Colorado board

Petition immunity is not a blank cheque. If the association's land-use challenge is objectively baseless — and a dismissal order finding the briefs did not even cite the governing code provisions is powerful evidence of that — the sham exception opens the door to abuse-of-process and tortious-interference liability.

One weak lawsuit is enough. A board cannot assume it is safe because the developer cannot show a campaign of litigation. No pattern showing is required.

Litigating past the point of purpose is the most dangerous fact in the case. The association kept the federal action alive after the state court dismissed and after the developer had voluntarily dismissed the only claim the removal rested on. When the basis for litigation disappears, so should the litigation.

Individual members are exposed. Organising a single-purpose entity to bring blocking litigation invited an alter-ego theory that survived dismissal against a member personally. Boards and members considering that structure should understand it can cut the other way.

Standing hygiene matters. The parallel bond action failed because the association never identified its members or asserted taxpayer status. Associational standing is not assumed; it is pleaded.

What would change the answer

A land-use challenge with an objectively reasonable basis keeps petition immunity intact — and the Tenth Circuit case the court distinguished shows how: courts engaging the arguments at length is itself evidence of non-frivolousness. A dismissal on the merits rather than for failure to engage the code reads differently. A properly pleaded associational standing showing removes one of the two baseless actions from the picture. And abandoning litigation once its basis disappears removes the most damaging fact here.

For boards weighing whether to challenge a nearby development at all, the honest framing is that the association's powers and its members' rights as electors are one thing, and a lawsuit is another. Colorado's own 2026 experience is instructive on where these fights actually get decided: Lakewood voters repealed an entire zoning overhaul by referendum in April 2026, and six home-rule cities are litigating the state's density and parking mandates in Denver District Court — both routes an association does not have.