Opinion ID: 1577849
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 308

Heading: Defense issue whether defendant had qualified privilege:

Text: If defendant has a qualified privilege as a matter of law, skip to instruction 405.9d. On the defense of privilege, I instruct you that provided one does not speak with improper motives, which I shall explain in a moment, a person such as (defendant) is privileged to make a statement to [someone such as (name)] [an audience such as (describe)] about another such as (claimant), even if the statement is untrue, under the following circumstances: Describe in general terms, sufficient for the jury to understand the interests protected by law, the facts which if proved would give rise to a qualified privilege. See General Note 6. If the greater weight of the evidence does not show that these circumstances existed, then you must find that (defendant) had no privilege to make such a statement even with proper motives. However, if the greater weight of the evidence does show that (defendant) spoke under circumstances creating such a privilege, then you should decide whether, as (claimant) claims, (defendant) made the statement with improper motives abusing that privilege.