Opinion ID: 8407617
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Peters’s defamation claim against Hollman

Text: The district court also granted JMOL in favor of Hollman on Peters’s defamation claim. Peters contends this was error because she presented a prima facie case that Hollman defamed her in two ways: first, by transmitting Bressler’s list of alleged deficiencies to Weiss without investigating them; and second, by telling the guidance staff that she was suicidal. 3 Under New York law, the elements of a defamation claim are “a false statement, published without privilege or authorization to a third party, constituting fault ... and it must either cause special harm or constitute defamation per se.” Dillon v. City of New York, 261 A.D.2d 34, 704 N.Y.S.2d 1, 5 (1999). Because Holl-man is an official of Baldwin, he had a qualified privilege to “make[ ] a bona fide communication upon a subject in which he [had] an interest, or a legal, moral, or social duty to speak, [where] the communication [was] made to a person having a corresponding interest or duty.” Santavicca v. City of Yonkers, 132 A.D.2d 656, 518 N.Y.S.2d 29, 31 (1987). Hollman, a principal, made statements to guidance counselors and to the Baldwin superintendent about a member of his staff and her ability to carry out her professional duties. Hollman’s statements were clearly within the scope of the qualified privilege. 4 Because Hollman had a qualified privilege to speak, it was Peters’s burden to show that Hollman’s statements were either made with “spite or ill will” or “with a high degree of awareness of their probable falsity.” Liberman v. Gelstein, 80 N.Y.2d 429, 437-39, 590 N.Y.S.2d 857, 605 N.E.2d 344 (1992) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). Peters presented no evidence that Hollman evinced ill will towards her, nor that he was motivated by spite in making the statements at issue. She argues on appeal that Hollman’s failure to investigate the truth of his statements before making them indicates that he was grossly negligent. But “there is a critical difference between not knowing whether something is true and being highly aware that it is probably false.” Id. at 438, 590 N.Y.S.2d 857, 605 N.E.2d 344. While the latter will support a defamation claim, the former will not. Here, Peters has presented no evidence that Hollman was aware of a probability that his statements were false. In fact, with respect to Peters’s Rehabilitation Act claim (which was based in part on Hollman’s alleged statement to the guidance counseling staff that Peters was suicidal), Peters’s claim depends on her assertion that he in fact believed his statement to be true. Because Hollman’s statements were made with a qualified privilege, we affirm the district court’s grant of JMOL on Peters’s defamation claim. IV. Whether the case should he remanded to a different judge We find no merit in plaintiffs claim that the case should be assigned on remand to a different trial judge.