A California appellate court has called out lawyers from Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and their client Dignity Health for using the automatic right to appeal decisions denying motions under the state's anti-SLAPP law to bog down a lawsuit brought by a group of physicians.

In a 23-page published opinion issued Tuesday, the First District Court of Appeal said Manatt and Dignity deserved criticism for seeking “to extend SLAPP where it has never gone before,” delaying the lawsuit for 22 months, and burning “untold attorneys fees.”

“A well-known saying, generally attributable to William Gladstone, is that 'Justice delayed is justice denied,'” wrote Justice James Richman, quoting from the court's 2011 decision in Grewal v. Jammu. “A lesser known saying, known to be attributable to prominent defense lawyers from major law firms, is that 'Justice delayed is justice.'”

The appellate court, however, stopped short of issuing any formal or monetary sanctions.

In the underlying lawsuit, Central Valley Hospitalists, a group of independent physicians who contract to provide services at a Dignity Health hospital in Stockton, sued the company in late 2015. CVH accused Dignity of inducing staff members to join one of Dignity's partners, harassing CVH physicians to the point they quit, refusing to provide necessary paperwork to physicians who wanted to join CVH, meddling in patient care, and inappropriately poaching CVH's primary care patients.

In CVH's complaint, the doctors' lawyers at the Arnold Law Firm in Sacramento stated its allegations weren't linked to “wrongs or facts arising from any peer review activities.” The California Supreme Court has found that the professional review of medical practitioners is the sort of official proceeding protected from a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP).

Despite CVH's representations, Dignity's lawyers at Manatt filed an anti-SLAPP motion claiming the actions underlying CVH's claims arose from “protected peer review activities.”

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn granted Dignity's demurrer of CVH's complaint, finding it didn't allege any facts to support its claims. But he denied Dignity's anti-SLAPP motion, finding the health care company couldn't point to any protected activity underlying the lawsuit.

“If there are no acts alleged, there can be no showing that alleged acts arise from protected activity,” Kahn wrote in his June 2016 order. Kahn said he could not rule based on what Dignity “believes [CVH's] claims are based on.”

Richman was joined in Tuesday's opinion upholding Kahn's anti-SLAPP ruling by First District Presiding Justice J. Anthony Kline and Justice Therese Stewart. The opinion quoted heavily from Kahn's earlier hearing on the matter and also borrowed from an earlier Fourth District opinion that found an earlier anti-SLAPP appeal “practically ha[d] the words 'brought for reasons of delay' virtually tattooed on its forehead.”

“Dignity Health has no forehead, and in any event Dignity Health does not appear to be the responsible party here,” wrote Richman before pointing the finger at the company's lawyers at Manatt.

Manatt partner Craig Rutenberg, whose name is mentioned multiple times in the opinion, didn't respond to an email seeking comment, nor did spokesmen for the firm and Dignity.

CVH's lawyer, Joshua Watson of the Arnold Law Firm, didn't respond to phone and email messages Wednesday.