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REMARKS ALLEGED TO BE DEFAMATORY REFLECTED THE RESULTS OF A JUDICIAL PROCEEDING AND WERE THEREFORE PRIVILEGED PURSUANT TO CIVIL RIGHTS LAW 74 (FIRST DEPT).

The First Department determination the complaint alleging defamation causes of action against attorneys who had been interviewed about litigation involving plaintiff and Elizabeth Etling, whom the defendant attorneys represented. The court held that the remarks alleged to be defamatory were either protected descriptions of judicial determinations in the case or were otherwise not actionable. With respect to the Civil Rights Law privilege, the court wrote:

Defendants’ comment about plaintiff’s “massive spoliation” or “spoliation in droves” is protected under Civil Rights Law § 74 as a fair and true report, even if the Delaware Chancery Court did not use defendants’ exact words in its decision… . The court concluded that plaintiff had intended and attempted to destroy “a substantial amount of information,” and detailed plaintiff’s responsibility for the deletion, in violation of court order, of approximately 41,000 files from his computer. Plaintiff argues that defendants overstated the matter, because his spoliation proved largely reversible. Indeed, of the 41,000 files deleted, 1,000 were permanently destroyed. However, plaintiff did not cause the recovery of the data; rather, it occurred in spite of him. Moreover, he lied under oath about his spoliating conduct. As the court observed, an unsuccessful spoliator is still a spoliator… .

Defendants’ comment that plaintiff was “holding Elting hostage” is protected under Civil Rights Law § 74. During the interviews at issue, defendants cited the section of the post-trial decision in which the court used similar language in summarizing Elting’s position … . Defendants’ statement that “no rational person would ever want to partner with [plaintiff],” which is nearly a verbatim quotation from the court’s decision, is protected under the statute. Shawe v Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, 2018 NY Slip Op 08550, First Dept 12-13-18

 

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