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QUALIFIED, NOT ABSOLUTE, PRIVILEGE APPLIES WHEN THE SUBJECT OF THE ALLEGED DEFAMATION HAS NO OPPORTUNITY TO REBUT THE ALLEGEDLY DEFAMATORY STATEMENTS (CT APP).

The Court of Appeals, in a full-fledged opinion by Judge Fahey, over a two-judge dissent, determined that qualified privilege, rather than absolute privilege, applied to allegations made to a Federal Drug Administration (FDA) investigator about plaintiff doctor’s involvement in a cancer-drug trial. The controlling issue was whether the statements were made in a proceeding which would allow the plaintiff to counter them:

Was plaintiff entitled to participate, by way of a hearing or otherwise, in the FDA’s review of the IRB [Institutional Review Board] and thereby challenge the accusations against her …? On this point, there is little disagreement. She was not. Plaintiff insists that she did not receive notice of any stage in the FDA’s investigation of the IRB. Nothing in the FDA regulations gives a third party, even one “with a direct interest” … in the matter, the right to notice of an FDA report concerning IRB noncompliance…  or the right to attend a “regulatory hearing” at which the IRB, as the subject of the investigation, would challenge disqualification by the FDA … . Moreover, while the regulatory scheme provides for judicial review… , defendants do not dispute plaintiff’s contention that she lacks standing to seek such review ,,, because the proceeding was not adversarial to her. Nor do defendants allege any alternative avenues available to plaintiff to contest, before the FDA, the alleged harm to her reputation. …

[Defendants’] theory … flies in the face of the policy rationale for insisting on an adversarial procedure, namely to prevent the absolute privilege from shielding statements published in a setting in which the defamed party may never know of the statements and, even if he or she did, would have no way to rebut them … . Stega v New York Downtown Hosp., 2018 NY Slip Op 04687, CtApp 6-27-18

​DEFAMATION (QUALIFIED, NOT ABSOLUTE, PRIVILEGE APPLIES WHEN THE SUBJECT OF THE ALLEGED DEFAMATION HAS NO OPPORTUNITY TO REBUT THE ALLEGEDLY DEFAMATORY STATEMENTS (CT APP))/PRIVILEGE (DEFAMATION, QUALIFIED, NOT ABSOLUTE, PRIVILEGE APPLIES WHEN THE SUBJECT OF THE ALLEGED DEFAMATION HAS NO OPPORTUNITY TO REBUT THE ALLEGEDLY DEFAMATORY STATEMENTS (CT APP))/ABSOLUTE PRIVILEGE (DEFAMATION, QUALIFIED, NOT ABSOLUTE, PRIVILEGE APPLIES WHEN THE SUBJECT OF THE ALLEGED DEFAMATION HAS NO OPPORTUNITY TO REBUT THE ALLEGEDLY DEFAMATORY STATEMENTS (CT APP))/QUALIFIED PRIVILEGE (DEFAMATION, QUALIFIED, NOT ABSOLUTE, PRIVILEGE APPLIES WHEN THE SUBJECT OF THE ALLEGED DEFAMATION HAS NO OPPORTUNITY TO REBUT THE ALLEGEDLY DEFAMATORY STATEMENTS (CT APP))

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