Opinion ID: 2555874
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Respondents' Verbal Statements to the Press.

Text: Respondents provided the press not only a copy of their State complaint, but also with verbal sound bites to be included presumably in any forthcoming news articles. As mentioned supra, Norman waived his defamation claim against Respondent Robinson, but preserved it with respect to Respondents Holland and Borison. Respondent Holland was quoted purportedly in a 19 June 2007 Baltimore Sun article as saying, [w]e're talking about bad people. . . . A mortgage foreclosure rescue scam is worse than predatory lending. They find out how much equity is in the house, and they come at you like vultures. June Arney, Class Action Alleges Home Equity Theft; Foreclosure-Rescue Firms Object of Suit, BALT. SUN, 19 June 2007, at 1E. Respondent Borison was quoted purportedly in a 25 June 2007 Baltimore Sun article as stating, [a]s we kept investigating the case, it became clear that there were also federal charges to be asserted. . . . Metropolitan Money Store was out stealing the equity in people's homes and on top of that, getting it tax free. Federal Court Gets Home-Equity Suit, at 3D. We conclude that an absolute privilege protects Respondents Holland's and Borison's statements. The contemplated proceeding in the courts meet the Gersh test. After reviewing the news articles in their entirety, it appears Respondents made the statements while promoting public awareness of their proposed class action claim and, thus, while participating in the course of the proceeding. The two news articles (published the day after filing the initial State complaint and the initial federal complaint, respectively) provided readers ( i.e., possible class members) with details about how the mortgage rescue scam worked, when it took place, who was involved potentially, and who was targeted likely. We are not prepared to say that plaintiffs are prohibited from promoting preemptively their class action suit, before they have been certified as such, or that they must avoid verbal communications to the press in doing soprovided framing the suit as a class action status is not shown to have been a subterfuge for funneling defamatory statements to the press. Such public promotion, under the latter proviso, is not part of the proper prosecution of most tort claims. Indeed, but for the fact that the mortgage rescue scam suit was striving to become a class action, our conclusion might have been different. The Kennedy adage retains vitalitylawyers who try their cases in the media do so at some peril. See Kennedy, 229 Md. at 99, 182 A.2d at 58. Because Respondents were attorneys of record in the case, we must determine also whether their statements were relevant or had some relation to the underlying proceeding. Respondent Holland's suggestion that [w]e're talking about bad people comes close to being irrelevant due to its breadth and generality. His other remark, however, makes reference to the mortgage rescue scam that was the subject of the suit, and, in these particular circumstances, we are unable to ascertain or state with confidence on this record what prompted his comment, let alone what prefaced or followed it. We hold that an absolute privilege applies to Respondents' challenged statements. As a result of our holding, we need not reach the question of whether Respondents' statements in their pleadings and press sound bites injured Norman sufficiently to sustain his defamation claim. JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS AFFIRMED; COSTS TO BE PAID BY PETITIONER.