academy please the court i proceed i'm harold stevens from stoner mott representing professor shang in her suit against st johnsbury academy kingdom development company south korea dr professor yang is a professor of english and education in korea she was picked and selected to sit on a committee to decide which private school in the united states would be appropriate to come and offer a high school education in korea she was well versed in the private school systems here in the states and that she's actually had children in private schools here she was concerned about st john's really academy because it's not strictly a private school because it takes public vouchers from students in the st johnsbury area so anybody can go to high school there she thought that st johnsbury academy was questionable and its conduct that it was also had its own company called kingdom development company it was actually going to be running the school slaughter officially protestor misconduct and request that you remove her from the subcommittee at the very least dr she should be censured disqualified and made to recuse herself from any further participation and went on to say that she falsely claimed that so in john's recounting it was not a private school which is not true she stated that she knowingly defame st john's very academy and development company which she claims is not true and basically they were upset with the fact that she argued that st john's was not the proper school that the committee should have chosen a better school jobs as a result she was in trouble with her committee over these these issues and was harmed as a result of the of these claims and as in a simple compla the federal rules of procedure way we set forth these facts and st johnsbury cademy king of development company moved to dismiss claiming that it didn't set forth a claim of basing his opinion on that the claim was claims were not plausibly false the plaintiff somehow and now the truth of the claims that we didn't show that there was lack of privilege or an unauthorized her conduct was not disruptive and her statements were not false was made a statement of fact basically under a motion to dismiss the court should be taking what we've stated as the truth and give us all reasonable inferences this did not happen here basically what the  as a trier of fact before there was even a trial we didn't get the opportunity all we have to do under the rules of procedure is a sept th a plain simple statement of facts which we did  made the law suggests is insufficient well i don't know how you can state something false well it's one of those i mean i don't understand how you can say that's conclusion is something's true or false that's obviously a conclusion right but there are facts here the there they were accusing her of having made false statement about their tax law if you're saying that's that that statement is false that she falsely represented that you would have to plead facts that supported your basis for making the accusation and the basis was because kingdom development company is the wholly own problem that's the concern well i think your honor i understand your position but i disagree with the fact that you think it's very thank you  several issues regarding waiver and i'll refer the court to the briefs on those issues unless the court has any questions instead of i to focus on why the district court properly dismissed the complaint and properly denied the post judgment motions in this case shows why the plausibility standard is more than just a technical pleading requirement it protects defendants in the court from the expense and time that they would have to devote to defending a case based on conclusory allegations nonspecific allegations and thread allegations of a cause of action instead of supporting the claim with specific facts that show that the plaintiff is entitled to relief one of the burdens that it this standard is intended to fulfill is protecting the defendant for having to engage in discovery there are allegations the complaint paragraphs twenty five to twenty eight that refer to the plaintiff's efforts to obtain records from the defendants previously unsuccessfully if the case is allowed to go forward there's a chance that the pla standard to prevent this case were going forward and to protect defendants from that burden the other point i'd like to focus on is the plaintiff's failure to overcome the privilege of  actively opposed to that project one member of that group was part of the government body reviewing bennett's application for this project so seeking recusal for the reason stated the letter is a logical n it was in a legal agreement are those factual allegations and what are other than you know she's acted improperly somehow those are factual allegations but what's lacking is factual specific factual allegations in the complaint that explain why those are not true why the statements the factual statements in the letter were not true there were other statements that the district court properly characterized as opinions either pure opinions or opinions that were backed up by substantially true facts and to that extent the pleading failed to meet the requirements under  it please the court my name is jennifer mcdonald on behalf of the appellee kingdom development company i want to lead off one of my co counsel has briefly addressed and also note that the appellant did not address it in his oral argument dr yan mason suit in this case was based entirely on an advocacy letter written by katie's attorney regarding its strongly held concerns over dr king's actions in a matter of significant business interest to  that is the development of an international school to island this communication from council under former law enjoys the qualify privilege it cannot be used to support a claim of defamation without a clear and convincing proof of malice an element that was neither pled in the original complaint nor can it be inferred from the allegations that were alleged in the complaint this is an essential immunity that protects and ensures that a lawyer and her client may not be sued for statements that are made on the client's behalf in furtherance of a client's interests it is an essential component of what the legal profession does in this case the complaint it's very clear that the original complaint contains no allegation of malice either stated or that can be inferred from the allegations that are contained in that complaint i also want to note that these statements were consider each and every one of them not as a whole and whether the entire letter was false but each and every statement was addressed by the district court johnsbury cademy have deep concerns about unauthorized and disrupt of actions and false statements by dr yang this is the type of statement that is found in communications from counsel on a daily basis i not indicate malice or reckless disregard of the information that was known to the client these issues were considered by the district court multiple times it was st considered on the merits in response to a motion to dismiss and then again in terms of whether is few tile under the core question replete i will note that in addition to the procedural and jurisdictional hurdles that are faced by dr yang in this case the futility point is worth referencing the proposed amended complaint did nothing to remedy the press the pleading errors that were contained in the initial complaint although the word malice was added there were no additional factual assertions alleged that would support a threadbare allegation of malice so as we look at it on the merits there are numerous grounds that the court could affirm the decision of the district court  one these are statements of opinion they are either pure opinion or mixed opinions that are substantially true based on the allegations in the complaint to and are and of significance to the legal profession is this qualified privilege that is enjoyed by counsel and the client to make advocacy statements and further ends of legitimate business interests of a client in the course of representation of that client judge the magistrate when we asked all to remand the judgment at least give us a chance to amend to more specifically say what was we think was false usually the board before dismissing will grant the part plaintiff a chance to amend where there might be uncertainties to try and get at the merits of things here and that was not done so in a spontaneous so we asked for an alter motion to alter a based on the fact that that's the use of the proper procedure and we also at the same time filed a motion to amend where in fact we listed a number of exactly what we believe to be the false we believe that what they did was roll full and want to and malicious to try and have my client who was in town to make an opinion about the school and because they didn't like her opinion to have him removed from her committee and be censured and make claims that what she was saying that basically she was a law here and that she was lying about that personally i don't understand how a court can dismiss this case with such a libelous clip letter i mean to me the whole thing has to be as one and we laid out exactly that she didn't say that she never went around saying that say john kerry was a private school for instance she said it was a public beltre school she she had