Opinion ID: 2555874
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Court of Special Appeals's Take.

Text: In a reported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals addressed initially the issue of standing. See Norman, 192 Md.App. at 420, 994 A.2d at 1027. Norman argued that he had standing because Respondents made defamatory, extrajudicial comments to the press, which were understood by persons who had dealt with Sussex to be aimed at him. See Norman, 192 Md.App. at 420, 994 A.2d at 1028. Moreover, as they filed and re-filed their complaint, Respondents not only alluded to him generally, but eventually named him outright in averments in the second amended complaint. See id. The intermediate appellate court organized the allegedly defamatory statements into two categoriesthose that named Norman directly and those that may have referred to him by virtue of his position with Sussex. Norman, 192 Md.App. at 420, 994 A.2d at 1028. Regarding the former, they were held not to be defamatory, but merely a description of Norman's business relations with the company he owned [in part]. Norman, 192 Md.App. at 421-22, 994 A.2d at 1028-29. Regarding the latter, they targeted the company, Sussex, not Norman. Where [a] company holds a right of action in tort, our appellate brethren continued, th[e] right does not extend to the company's owners, just as a cause of action that belongs to an owner individually [does] not extend to the company. Norman, 192 Md.App. at 422, 994 A.2d at 1029. Moreover, the appellate panel observed that the tort allegations specified that Sussex owners and employees referred to Chaudhry, Farahpour, and Ballesterosnot Norman; therefore, Norman lacked standing to assert the claims he advanced. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Norman had standing, the Court of Special Appeals concluded that the allegedly defamatory statements are [nonetheless] protected by absolute privilege. Norman, 192 Md.App. at 423, 994 A.2d at 1030. Regarding the allegations in the complaints (as opposed to the press sound bites), the intermediate appellate court reiterated that the `[a]bsolute judicial privilege applies to statements contained in pleadings, affidavits, or other documents directly related to the case.' Id. (quoting Offen v. Brenner, 402 Md. 191, 200, 935 A.2d 719, 724 (2007)) (quoting Keys v. Chrysler Credit Corp., 303 Md. 397, 403-04, 494 A.2d 200, 203 (1985)) (internal quotation marks omitted). To date, Maryland courts have not held that redistribution or dissemination of [such] pleadings will void privileged status. . . . Norman, 192 Md.App. at 427, 994 A.2d at 1032. To do otherwise would suggest that courtroom proceedings and pleadings, once filed, are no longer open to the public, Baltimore Sun Co. v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 359 Md. 653, 662, 755 A.2d 1130, 1135 (2000), or public property. Rosenberg v. Helinski, 328 Md. 664, 669, 616 A.2d 866, 873 (1992). The panel of the intermediate appellate court distinguished the principal cases on which Norman relied [12] on the basis that the present case stemmed from a proposed class action suit. See Norman, 192 Md.App. at 427, 994 A.2d at 1032. Regarding Respondents' verbal comments to the press, the Court of Special Appeals analyzed Kennedy v. Cannon, 229 Md. 92, 182 A.2d 54 (1962). Fearing a lynching of an African-American suspect for the alleged rape of a Caucasian woman, the suspect's attorney in Kennedy called the press, in an effort to defuse the tension, claiming the intercourse was consensual. See Kennedy, 229 Md. at 94, 182 A.2d at 55. In declining to extend the absolute privilege to the attorney's public defense of his client, the Court cautioned that not all statement[s] made by an attorney after the inception of a judicial proceeding will be privileged. Kennedy, 229 Md. at 97, 182 A.2d at 57. Rather, to be protected, statements must be made during the course of, i.e., as part of, a judicial proceeding. Kennedy, 229 Md. at 97-98, 182 A.2d at 57-58. The intermediate appellate court observed that Respondents did not make any comments to the newspaper that were both slanderous per se and directly identified Norman. Norman, 192 Md.App. at 425, 994 A.2d at 1030. Moreover, in contrast to Kennedy, Respondents filed pleadings with the court. See id. Considered together, Respondents were not attempting to set up a slanderous defense to the allegation of rape or some other crime in the press [like in Kennedy ]. Norman, 192 Md.App. at 425, 994 A.2d at 1031. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed the judgment of the Circuit Court. We granted Norman's petition for writ of certiorari, Norman v. Borison, 415 Md. 337, 1 A.3d 467 (2010), to consider whether: (1) [T]he lower court improperly rule[d] that [Norman], as owner of a small, unique business, lacked standing to sue for defamation when the defamatory statements personally referred to [Norman]?[ [13] ] (2) [T]he lower court err[ed] in concluding that the absolute litigation privilege extends to the republication of incomplete judicial pleadings to the press and on the internet?