Opinion ID: 1919906
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defamation Claim against Borskey

Text: The court of appeal dismissed plaintiff's claim against Borskey on the basis that the statements contained in Borskey's affidavit were not defamatory. Statements are defamatory only if the words, taken in context, tend to injure the person's reputation, to expose the person to public ridicule, to deter others from associating or dealing with the person, or to deprive the person of public confidence in his or her occupation. See, e.g., Sassone v. Elder, 626 So.2d 345, 352 (La.1993). The question for the court in determining whether words have a defamatory meaning is whether a third person hearing the communication would have reasonably understood the communication, taken in context, as intended in a defamatory sense. Id. Borskey's affidavit stated his recollection of the three-way conversation with Gros and plaintiff about the bidding for Family Day supplies. While Borskey did state in the affidavit that he was placed on hold during the three-way call, a situation that evidence at trial showed was impossible with the university's telephone system, any falsity [7] in that statement was essentially irrelevant to the issue of whether the statements were defamatory. The affidavit did not imply that any wrongdoing occurred while Borskey may not have been listening, for whatever reason, and Borskey stated that Gros and plaintiff reported after he resumed participation in the conversation that Gros could offer a lower unit price since a larger quantity of cups was to be ordered. Gros' final bid was based on the revised quantities and prices, as well as on the deletions and other specification changes, and there was wrongdoing in the deletions and specification charges only if the other two bidders were not allowed to bid on the revised specifications. The affidavit specifically asserted that Borskey had no additional knowledge about other conversations that may or may not have taken place between plaintiff and the three vendors before the three-way call and was silent as to any conversations after the call. In summary, the affidavit did not contain any accusations or implications of wrongdoing by plaintiff. In fact, the affidavit indicated that Borskey himself initialed and approved the changes on the bid form and that Borskey felt everything was in order. We conclude that the statements contained in Borskey's affidavit were not defamatory and therefore are not actionable. Rather, they were statements made by an employee pursuant to questioning by governmental investigators with whom he was instructed to cooperate. Consisting primarily of Borskey's factual memory of what transpired during the three-way telephone conversation, the affidavit left open the possibility that plaintiff contacted the other vendors for their bids after he changed the quantities and specifications of the pertinent items and after Gros' final bid was submitted during the three-way call. Although plaintiff argues that Borskey's affidavit suggested plaintiff awarded Gros the contract at the conclusion of the three-way conversation without giving the other vendors the opportunity to bid on the revised order, the affidavit merely reiterated plaintiff's statement that deleting certain items and revising the amount of cups to achieve a lower unit price would make Gros the low bidder, without suggesting one way or the other whether plaintiff contacted the other two vendors before awarding the contract to Gros. The affidavit does not directly state or even imply that Borskey was accusing plaintiff of rigging bids or of giving Gros a special advantage in the bid process that was not afforded to other vendors. Because plaintiff did not carry his burden of proving that the statements in the affidavit carried a defamatory meaning in context to the reasonable listener, he has failed to establish that the statements contained in Borskey's affidavit were defamatory.