Court Opinion

ID: 9864694
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 15:00:33.230768+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:24:17.589083
License: Public Domain

22-1412-cv
Neuman v. Global Security Solutions, Inc., et al.

                               UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                   FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
                                             SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A
SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY
FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN
CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE
EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION
“SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON
ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

        At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the
Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the
25th day of September, two thousand twenty-three.
Present:
                  JOHN M. WALKER, JR.,
                  DENNY CHIN,
                  WILLIAM J. NARDINI,
                        Circuit Judges.

_____________________________________
PHIL NEUMAN,
                           Plaintiff-Appellant,
                  v.                                                    22-1412-cv
GLOBAL SECURITY SOLUTIONS, INC.,
WERNER HELLMANN,
                           Defendants-Appellees.
_____________________________________

 For Plaintiff-Appellant:                           EDWARD GRIFFITH, The Griffith Firm, Brooklyn,
                                                    New York

 For Defendants-Appellees:                          ROBERT R. VIDUCICH, Law Office of Robert R.
                                                    Viducich, New York, New York

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           Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of

New York (Denise L. Cote, District Judge).

           UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

           Plaintiff-Appellant Phil Neuman appeals from a judgment of the United States District

Court for the Southern District of New York (Denise L. Cote, District Judge), entered on June 1,

2022. Neuman sued Defendants-Appellees Global Security Solutions, Inc. and its owner Werner

Hellmann (together, “Defendants”) for defamation and tortious interference with prospective

economic advantage, claiming that Hellmann made false statements to Neuman’s business

associate, Colin C. Conner, about Neuman having a history of fraud. The district court granted

summary judgment in favor of Defendants on all counts. See Neuman v. Glob. Sec. Sols., Inc.,

No. 21CV1670, 2022 WL 1782588 (S.D.N.Y. June 1, 2022). Neuman now appeals. We assume

the parties’ familiarity with the case.

           “We review a district court’s decision to grant summary judgment de novo, construing the

evidence in the light most favorable to the party against which summary judgment was granted

and drawing all reasonable inferences in its favor.” Harris v. Miller, 818 F.3d 49, 57 (2d Cir.

2016). 1 Affirmance is warranted “only if there is no genuine issue of material fact and the

prevailing party was entitled to judgment as a matter of law,” and summary judgment “must be

rejected if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving

party.” Id. We review a district court’s application of its own local rules and decisions to limit

discovery for abuse of discretion. See LoSacco v. City of Middletown, 71 F.3d 88, 92 (2d Cir.

1
    Unless otherwise indicated, case quotations omit all internal quotation marks, alterations, footnotes, and citations.

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1995) (application of local rules); In re Agent Orange Prod. Liab. Litig., 517 F.3d 76, 103 (2d Cir.

2008) (discovery rulings).

       Neuman first argues that the district court procedurally erred by failing to deem as admitted

all facts in his S.D.N.Y Local Rule 56.1 Statement when Defendants failed to respond to that

statement. Under Local Rule 56.1(c), “[e]ach numbered paragraph in the statement of material

facts set forth in the statement required to be served by the moving party will be deemed to be

admitted for purposes of the motion unless specifically controverted by a correspondingly

numbered paragraph in the statement required to be served by the opposing party.” Neuman claims

that Local Rule 56.1(c) sets forth the mandatory consequences of a party’s non-compliance or, in

other words, that the district court must deem as admitted all facts in a moving party’s Local Rule

56.1 Statement if the opposing party fails to respond. It is well established, however, that “[a]

district court has broad discretion to determine whether to overlook a party’s failure to comply

with local court rules.” Holtz v. Rockefeller & Co., 258 F.3d 62, 73 (2d Cir. 2001). Here, the

district court relied in part on the parties’ submissions but also exercised its undoubted discretion

to engage in independent scrutiny of the record. The district court cannot be said to have abused

its discretion when it took steps to ensure that its summary judgment decision was solidly grounded

in evidence in the record. See id. (finding it was within the district court’s discretion “not to apply

Local Rule 56.1” and to “review the record de novo”).

       Turning to the merits, Neuman argues that the district court erroneously granted summary

judgment in favor of Defendants on his defamation claim. The district court held, in relevant part,

that Neuman failed show that Hellmann’s statements were false. Neuman contends that the district

court’s analysis was based on an erroneous interpretation of Hellmann’s statement to the effect

that Hellmann had information indicating that Neuman had a history of fraud. In Neuman’s view,

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the district court interpreted the statement, in context, to mean that Neuman had been accused of

fraud in lawsuits. Neuman, by contrast, interprets Hellmann’s statement to mean that “Neuman

has been found guilty of commercial fraud multiple times.”                 App. Br. at 23.       Under that

interpretation, Neuman claims that Hellmann’s statement is, indeed, false because he has never

been found guilty of fraud and there is no evidence that any of the allegations of fraud in the

lawsuits are true.

        “Under New York law, the elements for a slander cause of action are (i) a defamatory

statement of fact, (ii) that is false, (iii) published to a third party, (iv) of and concerning the plaintiff,

(v) made with the applicable level of fault on the part of the speaker, (vi) either causing special

harm or constituting slander per se, and (vii) not protected by privilege.” Sleepy’s LLC v. Select

Comfort Wholesale Corp., 909 F.3d 519, 528 (2d Cir. 2018). The element of falsity is satisfied

when a plaintiff shows that the statement is “substantially false” or, in other words, “not

substantially true.” Tannerite Sports, LLC v. NBCUniversal News Grp., 864 F.3d 236, 242, 247

(2d Cir. 2017). Further, when determining whether a statement is false, “the entire publication, as

well as the circumstances of its issuance, must be considered in terms of its effect upon the ordinary

reader.” Id. at 243 (quoting Silsdorf v. Levine, 59 N.Y.2d 8, 13 (1983)).

        We agree with the district court that Neuman failed to carry his burden to prove that

Hellmann’s statement was “not substantially true.” In his conversation with Conner, Hellmann

vaguely referred to “collected insurance commissions, unlicensed, unregistered companies” and

“old court cases” when discussing how he had found information indicating Neuman’s “history

. . . of fraud.” App’x 114. Hellmann never stated that Neuman had, in fact, been found guilty of

fraud. An “ordinary reader” thus would believe that the “history . . . of fraud” described by

Hellmann involved these “collected insurance commissions” and “unregistered companies” and

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was reflected in “old court cases.” Viewed in this light, Neuman has failed to show that

Hellmann’s statement is “not substantially true.” Although Neuman submitted evidence disputing

the underlying facts of the one lawsuit in which he was found liable for misrepresentation, he did

not submit any evidence rebutting the allegations of fraud that were made in the remaining

lawsuits. Neuman provided evidence that the remaining lawsuits have largely been settled or

stayed, but none of that tends to prove that he did not commit the alleged fraudulent acts. And it

does not matter whether Defendants proffered any evidence proving that the allegations of fraud

in those lawsuits are true—under New York law, the burden is on the plaintiff to prove falsity, not

on the defendant to prove truth. See Tannerite Sports, LLC, 864 F.3d at 244 (“Falsity is an element

of defamation under contemporary New York law.”). Additionally, Neuman provided no evidence

demonstrating that his companies are registered.

       Neuman further argues that the district court erred by denying his requests for discovery

regarding the identity of the client who hired Hellmann to investigate Neuman, the circumstances

of Hellmann’s retention by such client, as well as information about other people with whom

Hellmann may have spoken during his investigation. Neuman’s discovery requests sought

information regarding “any person” and “all persons” with whom Hellmann had spoken regarding

Neuman and the nature of their conversations, even if such conversations were confidential and

involved Hellmann’s client who allegedly had separate litigation pending against Neuman. App’x

76, 78. Such requests would have clearly exceeded the scope of discovery under Fed. R. Civ. P.

26. The district court therefore did not abuse its discretion in limiting discovery to the only

conversation involving allegedly defamatory statements specifically mentioned in the

Complaint—Hellmann’s conversations with Conner.

       We have considered Neuman’s remaining arguments and find them unpersuasive.

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                                *      *      *

For the reasons stated above, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

                                           FOR THE COURT:

                                           Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk

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