Court Opinion

ID: 9395855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-05-18 18:13:25.280034+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:12.178415
License: Public Domain

2023 UT App 32

                  THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

                         RAINFOCUS INC.,
                           Appellant,
                               v.
                           CVENT INC.,
                            Appellee.

                             Opinion
                        No. 20210611-CA
                        Filed April 6, 2023

            Fourth District Court, Provo Department
               The Honorable Robert C. Lunnen
                         No. 200400682

       Alexander Dushku, Cameron Hancock, Justin Starr,
            James Burton, and Michael Eixenberger,
                   Attorneys for Appellant
              Marc T. Rasich, Attorney for Appellee

  JUDGE DAVID N. MORTENSEN authored this Opinion, in which
        JUDGES MICHELE M. CHRISTIANSEN FORSTER and
                 RYAN D. TENNEY concurred.

MORTENSEN, Judge:

¶1     RainFocus Inc. sued Cvent Inc., its competitor, on claims of
defamation flowing from statements Cvent allegedly made to
clients or prospective clients asserting that RainFocus
misappropriated its trade secrets and copyrights. Cvent moved to
dismiss the suit, and the district court ruled that the statements
were not subject to a defamatory meaning because they either
were truthful statements about a federal lawsuit Cvent had filed
against RainFocus or were protected statements of opinion. We
hold that the statements were subject to a defamatory meaning
because repeating allegations from a lawsuit does not inoculate a
party from defamation and because the totality of the
                        RainFocus v. Cvent

circumstances—including the broader setting of Cvent
attempting to undercut RainFocus’s business through private
communications      tarnishing   its   reputation—favors   an
interpretation of the statements as fact-based rather than as
protected opinion. Accordingly, we reverse.

                        BACKGROUND1

¶2     Cvent and RainFocus are market competitors offering
software services for event management. In 2017, Cvent sued
RainFocus and other defendants in federal court (the Federal
Action), alleging trade secret misappropriation and tortious
interference, among other things. While the Federal Action was
ongoing, RainFocus filed the present suit in a Utah district court,
alleging defamation and intentional interference with economic
relations against Cvent. 2

¶3  RainFocus’s defamation claim is based on four alleged
communications made outside of the Federal Action.3 In sum, in

1. Because we are reviewing the district court’s dismissal of
RainFocus’s complaint for failure to state a claim, “we accept as
true all material allegations contained in the complaint.” West v.
Thomson Newspapers, 872 P.2d 999, 1004 (Utah 1994).

2. The district court case also included Cvent’s CEO and general
counsel as defendants. The district court dismissed these
individual defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction, and
RainFocus does not challenge their dismissal. Thus, they are not
parties to this appeal.

3. These alleged communications have been sealed in the Federal
Action and classified as private in the proceedings below, so we
do not repeat their content here, with the exception of facts
                                                   (continued…)

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                        RainFocus v. Cvent

each of these four communications, Cvent allegedly made
statements claiming that RainFocus stole its source code,
misappropriated its trade secrets, interfered with its business
relationships, or took other bad actions. Each item obviously
references the Federal Action. Three of the four alleged
communications—items one, three, and four—consist of emails
among Cvent’s chief executive officer and founder (CEO) or its
general counsel (General Counsel) and representatives of two
other companies that were customers or potential customers of
RainFocus. RainFocus alleges that CEO, in initially reaching out
to these companies, “was not responding to an inquiry from
[these companies], but was proactively trying to stop [the
companies] from giving business to RainFocus.” In item three,
under a discussion of the claims at issue in the Federal Action,
Cvent said, “[W]e have evidence that they have actually
duplicated or plagiarized significant portions of our source code,”
and “[W]e have evidence that they are using our confidential and
proprietary information and trade secrets . . . to lure customers.”
The final item—item two—is an email allegedly from one of those
third-party representatives to himself with notes about a phone
call with Cvent—including CEO and General Counsel—on the
topic of the Federal Action.4 The email contains many statements

contained in the public briefs and their addenda and language
quoted by the parties during oral argument. This requires us to be
vague where we prefer to be specific in our recitation and
application of the facts, and we recognize that doing so limits the
usefulness of this opinion in other circumstances. We note for the
sake of the parties and the district court that we have carefully
considered each alleged communication independently.

4. Item two contains another email, but the allegedly defamatory
language in this second email is not sufficient to sustain a claim of
defamation. “A complaint for defamation must set forth the
                                                      (continued…)

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                        RainFocus v. Cvent

Cvent allegedly made about its background with RainFocus and
about the Federal Action. One of these statements alleges that a
third-party expert called this case “the most egregious example of
IP theft they have ever seen.”

¶4      RainFocus also alleges that “Cvent . . . told other third
parties, including current and prospective RainFocus customers,
that RainFocus actually duplicated or plagiarized significant
portions of Cvent’s source code and stole Cvent’s confidential and
proprietary information, and that RainFocus does not compete
fairly.”5

¶5     Cvent moved to dismiss RainFocus’s claims on the basis
that Cvent’s alleged statements were not defamatory. The district
court agreed and dismissed RainFocus’s defamation claims for
failure to state a claim. The court held that “all of the subject
statements are true statements about pending litigation or
ancillary reports, mere opinion statements regarding whether
[RainFocus] misappropriated Cvent’s intellectual property, [and]
statements reflecting optimism about the outcome of such
pending litigation.” The court noted that item four caused the
court “some concern because it potentially could take a statement
out of the realm of truth or optimism and into the sphere of
defamation.” “However,” the court reasoned, “the context of the
entire email puts the situation in focus—[General Counsel] is

language complained of in words or words to that effect.”
Zoumadakis v. Uintah Basin Med. Center, Inc., 2005 UT App 325, ¶ 3,
122 P.3d 891 (cleaned up). For this email, we have no allegation as
to what, specifically, CEO said. Accordingly, we do not consider
this email further, and our discussion of item two applies only to
the email containing notes from the phone call.

5. While we choose to focus our analysis on the four specific items
described, our conclusions apply to these statements—such as
they may exist—as well.

 20210611-CA                     4               2023 UT App 32
                        RainFocus v. Cvent

speaking about pending litigation[,] . . . not making an affirmative
statement that [RainFocus] stole intellectual property.” The court
also dismissed RainFocus’s intentional interference with
economic relations claim, reasoning that dismissal of the
defamation claims meant RainFocus could not show “improper
means”—an essential element of the claim. Accordingly, the court
dismissed RainFocus’s complaint. RainFocus appeals and asks us
to reverse the dismissal of all its claims.6

             ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

¶6     RainFocus alleges that the district court erroneously
dismissed its complaint. When reviewing defamation claims
dismissed for failure to state a claim, “we accept as true all
material allegations contained in the complaint.” West v. Thomson
Newspapers, 872 P.2d 999, 1004 (Utah 1994). However, we do not
“indulge the appellant by interpreting inferences that may be
reasonably drawn from the statements in favor of a defamatory
meaning.” Spencer v. Glover, 2017 UT App 69, ¶ 5, 397 P.3d 780
(cleaned up).7 This is because defamation “never arrives at court

6. While we do not address the intentional interference claim
independently, our reversal on the defamation claims allows
RainFocus to again advance this claim.

7. For some time, various judges on this court have been using the
parenthetical “(cleaned up)” to enhance the readability of our
opinions. See State v. Cady, 2018 UT App 8, ¶ 9 n.2, 414 P.3d 974,
cert. denied, 421 P.3d 439 (Utah 2018). Our opinions also employ
the parenthetical “(quotation simplified),” which is identical in
meaning to “(cleaned up).” See In re K.W., 2018 UT App 44, ¶ 15
n.3, 420 P.3d 82. Both parentheticals indicate the omission of
internal quotation marks, brackets, ellipses, emphases, internal
citations, and footnote signals in published sources, as well as the
                                                     (continued…)

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                        RainFocus v. Cvent

without its companion and antagonist, the First Amendment, in
tow.” O’Connor v. Burningham, 2007 UT 58, ¶ 27, 165 P.3d 1214. So
“[t]o accommodate the respect we accord its protections of
speech, the First Amendment’s presence merits altering our
customary rules of review by denying a nonmoving party the
benefit of a favorable interpretation of factual inferences.” Id.
Rather, “we look to the context of the allegedly defamatory
statement and then, in a nondeferential manner, reach an
independent conclusion about the statement’s susceptibility to a
defamatory interpretation.” Spencer, 2017 UT App 69, ¶ 5 (cleaned
up). “This determination is a question of law, reviewed for
correctness.” Id. “Additionally, whether the motion to dismiss

traditional parenthetical notation referencing a prior case or cases
being quoted. Ellipses indicate all other omissions. We also use
these parentheticals to make unbracketed changes to
capitalization. Apart from capitalization, alterations to words in
the source are indicated by brackets.
        These parentheticals are powerful editing tools because
they make legal writing less tedious, more streamlined, and more
concise. But their appeal begets a temptation to misuse them. And
we acknowledge that we have, at times, ventured too far by using
them with (1) quotations from unpublished sources not readily
available to the public (namely, briefs, lower court documents,
and transcripts) and (2) quotations of parenthetical language from
cases citing other cases. To be more transparent and precise, we
intend to limit our employment of these parentheticals to the
circumstances identified in the above paragraph, and we expect
practitioners who choose to employ these devices to abide by
these same strictures. So that consistency of use might be
achieved, the publishers of The Bluebook may wish to adopt rules
similar to those proffered by Jack Metzler. See Jack Metzler,
Cleaning Up Quotations, 18 J. App. Prac. & Process 143, 154–55
(2017).

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                         RainFocus v. Cvent

was properly granted is also a question of law that we review for
correctness.” Id.

                            ANALYSIS

¶7       “To state a claim for defamation, [one] must show that [the
other party] published the statements . . . , that the statements
were false, defamatory, and not subject to any privilege, that the
statements were published with the requisite degree of fault, and
that their publication resulted in damage.” West v. Thomson
Newspapers, 872 P.2d 999, 1007 (Utah 1994) (cleaned up). Because
this appeal comes before us on a motion to dismiss, we assume
without deciding that the statements were false, that they were
published with the requisite degree of fault, and that they resulted
in damage to RainFocus. See id. at 1004. Cvent asserts in its brief
that it is not arguing that its statements were privileged. Thus, our
question is whether the statements were capable of sustaining a
defamatory meaning. See Jacob v. Bezzant, 2009 UT 37, ¶¶ 18, 30,
212 P.3d 535 (“Whether a statement is capable of sustaining a
defamatory meaning is a question of law.” (cleaned up));
O’Connor v. Burningham, 2007 UT 58, ¶ 26, 165 P.3d 1214 (“This is
not to say that the responsibility of determining whether a
statement is defamatory as a matter of law falls to the reviewing
court. In the first instance, it does not. Rather, the reviewing court
must answer the question of defamatory susceptibility as a matter
of law in a nondeferential manner.” (cleaned up)).

¶8      A statement is capable of sustaining a defamatory meaning
“if it impeaches an individual’s honesty, integrity, virtue, or
reputation and thereby exposes the individual to public hatred,
contempt, or ridicule.” Spencer v. Glover, 2017 UT App 69, ¶ 7, 397
P.3d 780 (cleaned up). “The guiding principle in determining
whether a statement is defamatory is the statement’s tendency to
injure a reputation in the eyes of its audience.” Id. (cleaned up).
This is because “at its core, an action for defamation is intended

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                        RainFocus v. Cvent

to protect an individual’s interest in maintaining a good
reputation.” Id. (cleaned up). When determining whether a
statement is capable of sustaining a defamatory meaning, “a court
cannot view individual words in isolation but must carefully
examine the context in which the statement was made.” Id.
(cleaned up).

¶9     Cvent asserts that the alleged statements are not
susceptible to a defamatory interpretation because they are either
“true statements about the Federal Action” or “constitutionally
protected matters of opinion.” We disagree and address each
argument in turn.

          I. Truth and the Judicial Proceeding Privilege

¶10 In Utah, “truth is an absolute defense to an action for
defamation.” Brehany v. Nordstrom, Inc., 812 P.2d 49, 57 (Utah
1991). “The defense of truth is sufficiently established if the
defamatory charge is true in substance.” Id. “Insignificant
inaccuracies of expression do not defeat the defense of truth.” Id.
at 58.

¶11 Cvent argues that the statements in item one are “truthful
statements about Cvent’s allegations in the Federal Action.”
Likewise, it claims that the statements in item two “are truthful
statements about the ongoing federal proceedings.” For item
three, Cvent alleges that “[t]he statements of which RainFocus
complains occur in the . . . explanation of . . . claims and are
therefore direct descriptions of the allegations in the Federal
Action.” Regarding item four, Cvent insists that “based on the rest
of the email and the attached summary,” General Counsel was
referring to the Federal Action. So, Cvent states, “[i]n each
example, a proper evaluation of the statements and their context
makes clear that Cvent is not making affirmative statements about
RainFocus’s conduct; it is making truthful statements about the
allegations and ongoing proceedings in the Federal Action.”

 20210611-CA                    8                2023 UT App 32
                         RainFocus v. Cvent

Cvent argues that “such truthful statements about pending
litigation cannot form the basis of a defamation claim.”

¶12 Cvent relies on Hinchey v. Horne, No. CV13-00260-PHX-
DGC, 2013 WL 4543994 (D. Ariz. Aug. 28, 2013), for support. In
Hinchey, a criminal investigator brought a defamation claim based
on a screening memorandum prepared by the Chief Deputy
Attorney General in an internal investigation that “repeated
allegations made by . . . former police officers” in a notice of claim
(NOC) “alleging that [the investigator] had fabricated facts in her
grand jury testimony.” Id. at *1, *4. The court noted that “[t]he
memo merely recount[ed] allegations made in the NOC and
attribute[d] them to the NOC.” Id. at *10. It reasoned that
“[b]ecause the memo’s statement—that the NOC claimed [the
investigator] fabricated evidence before a grand jury—was true
. . . , it cannot provide the basis for a defamation claim.” Id. Cvent
uses this to argue that “when the relevant context makes clear that
the statement is a true description of disputed allegations in a
public lawsuit, the statement is not defamatory, as the court held
in Hinchey.”

¶13 However, we see significant tension between such a
proposed rule and existing Utah case law. Cvent asserts that cases
applying the judicial proceeding privilege are “[i]rrelevant,” but
we are not convinced that this privilege can be extricated from the
assertion of truth that Cvent is claiming. Indeed, we are
persuaded that this case is controlled by Pratt v. Nelson, 2007 UT
41, 164 P.3d 366.

¶14 In Pratt, our supreme court explained that “[t]he common
law judicial proceeding privilege immunizes certain statements
that are made during a judicial proceeding from defamation
claims.” Id. ¶ 27. This privilege “is intended to promote the
integrity of the adjudicatory proceeding and its truth finding
processes . . . by facilitating the free and open expression by all
participants that will only occur if they are not inhibited by the

 20210611-CA                      9                2023 UT App 32
                         RainFocus v. Cvent

risk of subsequent defamation suits.” Id. (cleaned up). For
“absolute immunity under the judicial proceeding privilege” to
apply, “the statements must be (1) made during or in the course
of a judicial proceeding; (2) have some reference to the subject
matter of the proceeding; and (3) be made by someone acting in
the capacity of judge, juror, witness, litigant, or counsel.” Id. ¶ 28
(cleaned up).

¶15 However, “a party may lose the absolute immunity
afforded by the judicial proceeding privilege through excessive
publication.” Id. ¶ 33 (cleaned up). “A publication is excessive if
the statement was published to more persons than necessary to
resolve the dispute or further the objectives of the proposed
litigation.” Id. (cleaned up). And “the purpose of the excessive
publication rule is to prevent abuse of the privilege by publication
of defamatory statements to persons who have no connection to
the judicial proceeding.” Id. (cleaned up). “When deciding if a
statement was excessively published, we look to the overall
circumstances of the publication and determine if the purpose of
the judicial proceeding privilege . . . is furthered by the
statement’s publication.” Id. ¶ 34 (cleaned up). For example, in
Pratt, an alleged victim’s complaint that listed two persons among
many members of a polygamous group, id. ¶ 4, was found to be
protected by the judicial proceeding privilege, id. ¶ 32, but when
the alleged victim “called a press conference and distributed
various statements to the media for widespread dissemination,”
id. ¶ 48, the court held that the same statements made in the
complaint, “when made to the press, were not protected by the
judicial proceeding privilege,” id. ¶ 46. The court reasoned that
the “statements were published to more persons than necessary
to resolve the dispute or further the objectives of the proposed
litigation” because “[t]he press had neither any relation to the
pending litigation nor any clear legal interest in the outcome of
the case.” Id.

 20210611-CA                     10                2023 UT App 32
                         RainFocus v. Cvent

¶16 While Cvent may not be arguing that the allegedly
defamatory statements were covered by the judicial proceeding
privilege, it must accept that this privilege applies to its complaint
in the Federal Action. If not, the statements alleging
misappropriation and other claims contained therein would
themselves be subject to a defamation claim, and Cvent’s
subsequent repetition of them in the statements at issue could be
actionable as republishing defamation. See generally 50 Am. Jur.
2d Libel and Slander § 245 (2023) (“Unless the republication is
privileged, the publisher of a false statement made by another
person, when the publisher knows the statement to be false, is not
protected by the fact that someone else made the statement. Such
person is liable for the publication, even though he or she is only
repeating the defamatory statement of another, and is careful to
ascribe the statements to the original speaker.” (cleaned up)).

¶17 Cvent’s purported defense of truth rests on the assumption
that statements about pending litigation that truthfully repeat the
allegations and evidence at issue in the lawsuit are subject to the
truth defense, but this is only possible if the underlying
allegations are themselves subject to the judicial proceeding
privilege. So Cvent’s assertion of a defense of truth unattached to
the judicial proceeding privilege amounts to something of an
attempted end run around that privilege and its limitation in
instances of excessive publication. If Cvent’s approach were
adopted, a party who claims the judicial proceeding privilege but
then publishes excessively would be subject to liability, but
another party could ignore the privilege and simply argue that the
statements (while perhaps themselves untrue) accurately reflect
what is alleged in a companion lawsuit and thus escape liability
altogether.

¶18 Accordingly, we are hesitant to accept that accurate
recitations of claims alleged in a lawsuit are inherently subject to
the truth defense given the body of law in Utah restricting

 20210611-CA                     11                2023 UT App 32
                        RainFocus v. Cvent

excessive publication of such claims.8 While we acknowledge that
privilege and truth are different doors defendants may walk
through to defend against defamation, our case law against
excessive publication makes little sense if the truth door is blasted
open by a lawsuit such that republished allegations are wholly
immunized as long as they are attributed to a privileged source.
There would be no need for defendants to claim the judicial
proceeding privilege—and no need for courts to strictly apply
that privilege—if defendants could republish legal claims in this
way.

¶19 Further, if merely putting a listener on notice of the
pendency of a lawsuit was enough to protect repetition of the
allegations made therein from defamation claims, companies
would have an incentive to sue their competitors so that they
could freely spread accusations against them based on the
ostensible justification of making their audience aware of the
pending litigation. This cannot be right. Carte blanche repetition
of allegations is exactly the harm the excessive publication
limitation aims to prevent: “The salutary policy of allowing
freedom of communication in judicial proceedings does not
warrant or countenance the dissemination and distribution of
defamatory accusations outside of the judicial proceeding. No
public purpose is served by allowing a person to unqualifiedly
make libelous or defamatory statements about another.” Pratt,
2007 UT 41, ¶ 47 (cleaned up). Our supreme court has warned
against just such a result:

8. We assume without deciding that a party is able to—under a
defense of truth—provide a minimal statement that it filed a
lawsuit or is responding to one and a nominal statement of the
general nature of the suit. We need not decide this question or
engage in additional line-drawing at this time because Cvent went
far beyond this in its statements.

 20210611-CA                     12               2023 UT App 32
                        RainFocus v. Cvent

       [W]hile a defamatory pleading is privileged, that
       pleading cannot be a predicate for dissemination of
       the defamatory matter to the public or third parties
       not connected with the judicial proceeding.
       Otherwise, to cause great harm and mischief a
       person need only file false and defamatory
       statements as judicial pleadings and then proceed to
       republish the defamation at will under the cloak of
       immunity.

Id. (cleaned up). Cvent acknowledges that “[c]ertainly, filing a
lawsuit does not give the plaintiff or others an unfettered right to
repeat the complaint’s allegations as unqualified statements of
fact to the press or to others.” But this is not all. Our case law
makes clear that filing a lawsuit does not provide a right to repeat
the allegations at will, even if the allegations themselves are not
presented as statements of fact. Id. Therefore, we reject the notion
that a party’s accurate restatements of its own allegations made in
pending litigation are inherently defensible as truth.

¶20 And we note that this is not what happened in Hinchey,
where the notice of claim was not prepared by the author of the
memo. 2013 WL 4543994, at *4. Accordingly, the Hinchey court
addressed a separate issue that we do not reach at this time,
namely liability for statements in a screening memo—drafted as
part    of     an     internal    investigation—that      truthfully
described allegations made by others in a notice of claim. But
when a party to a lawsuit repeats its own allegations made in the
suit, we conclude that the judicial proceeding privilege remains
attached to the allegations such that their republishing must abide
by the limits of the privilege or fall subject to claims for
defamation.

¶21 Furthermore, we conclude that Cvent’s statements go
beyond recounting allegations made in the federal pleadings and
attributing them to that source. Not all of Cvent’s supposedly true

 20210611-CA                    13                2023 UT App 32
                        RainFocus v. Cvent

descriptions of allegations in the Federal Action are couched in
language attributing the allegations to Cvent’s complaint. This
matters. While we do not “view individual words in isolation but
must carefully examine the context in which the statement was
made” in our defamatory meaning analysis, Spencer v. Glover,
2017 UT App 69, ¶ 7, 397 P.3d 780 (cleaned up), there is a
difference between stating, “Our complaint alleges X generally,”
and specifically stating the individual allegations. For the former,
our inquiry invokes the judicial proceeding privilege, as
discussed above. But for the latter, if a party simply states
allegations (even with the backdrop of pending litigation), the
underlying allegations themselves would need to be true for the
defense of truth to apply. See Brehany v. Nordstrom, 812 P.2d 49,
57–58 (Utah 1991) (determining that dismissal of two former
employees’ defamation claims based on statements that their
“dismissals were for drug-related activities” was justified
because both “admitted at trial that they had used illegal drugs
while employed” and finding that a third former employee
“made no such admission[] and the evidence relating to
whether she had been involved with illicit drugs was, at best,
conflicting,” so the court could not “hold as a matter of law
that truth was a defense to [her] claim”). While it seems
possible that the context of a statement could shift our
inquiry from the truth of the allegations to the applicability of
the judicial proceeding privilege, we need not determine if
that happened here. For statements accurately describing its
legal claims, Cvent would need to prove application of the
judicial proceeding privilege, which it does not attempt to do.
And for mere allegations, Cvent would need to prove the truth of
the underlying facts, such as by succeeding in the Federal Action.
But as this appeal is before us on a motion to dismiss, we must
accept RainFocus’s assertion that the underlying allegations are
false. Therefore, at this point in the proceedings, Cvent’s defense
of truth fails as a matter of law.

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                        RainFocus v. Cvent

                           II. Opinion

¶22 Cvent next argues that the alleged statements are
nondefamatory because they are “constitutionally protected
matters of opinion.” “Even if a statement is defamatory, the Utah
Constitution provides an independent source of protection for
expressions of opinion.” Spencer v. Glover, 2017 UT App 69, ¶ 8,
397 P.3d 780 (cleaned up). “Because expressions of pure opinion
fuel the marketplace of ideas and because such expressions are
incapable of being verified, they cannot serve as the basis for
defamation liability.” Id. (cleaned up). “But the Utah Supreme
Court has noted that opinions rarely stand alone, isolated from
any factual moorings. To convince readers of the legitimacy of an
opinion, authors typically describe the perceived factual bases for
opinions, seeking to demonstrate that the author’s opinions are
grounded in common sense.” Id. (cleaned up). And while “the
Utah Constitution protects expressions of opinion, this protection
is abused when the opinion states or implies facts that are false
and defamatory. If the opinion does not state or imply such facts
or if the underlying facts are not defamatory, an action for
defamation is improper.” Id. (cleaned up).

¶23 As we determine whether Cvent’s statements were
protected expressions of opinion, we recognize that “[t]he
distinction between opinion and fact is not always clear.” See id.
¶ 9. To aid this inquiry, “our supreme court has outlined four
factors that are useful in distinguishing fact from opinion.” Id.
(cleaned up). They are

      (i) the common usage or meaning of the words used;
      (ii) whether the statement is capable of being
      objectively verified as true or false; (iii) the full
      context of the statement—for example, the entire
      article or column—in which the defamatory
      statement is made; and (iv) the broader setting in
      which the statement appears.

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                         RainFocus v. Cvent

West v. Thomson Newspapers, 872 P.2d 999, 1018 (Utah 1994).
Ultimately, we distinguish fact from opinion “[b]ased on the
totality of circumstances in which the statements were made.” Id.

A.     Common Usage and Objective Verifiability

¶24 “As we begin our analysis, we employ the common usage
or meaning of the words to determine whether the statement is
capable of being objectively verified as true or false.” Spencer, 2017
UT App 69, ¶ 11 (cleaned up). Here, these factors largely—though
not entirely—favor a determination that Cvent’s statements are
statements of fact.

¶25 As noted, in each of the four communications at issue,
Cvent allegedly made statements claiming that RainFocus stole its
source code, misappropriated its trade secrets, or interfered with
its business relationships. The recitation of our analysis on this
point is somewhat circumscribed by the fact that we cannot
provide the actual language of most of these communications, but
it is sufficient to state that we find some language whose common
meaning is that RainFocus stole from Cvent. Critically, the
communications at issue do not simply declare that RainFocus is
intellectually dishonest, a mere opinion. Instead, they state the
factual basis for such an opinion: that RainFocus stole source code
and other materials from Cvent and used this material to lure
away Cvent’s customers. For example, in item three Cvent
repeatedly emphasizes evidence supporting its position that
RainFocus engaged in wrongdoing: “[W]e have evidence that
they actually duplicated or plagiarized significant portions of our
source code,” and “we have evidence that they are using our
confidential and proprietary information and trade secrets . . . to
lure customers.”

¶26 The Utah Constitution’s protection of expressions of
opinion would be abused here because the purported opinions
“state[] or impl[y] facts that are false and defamatory.” See id. ¶ 8

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                        RainFocus v. Cvent

(cleaned up). Indeed, Cvent states facts (RainFocus stole source
code and more) and asks us to read into them an opinion
(RainFocus is dishonest), not the other way around. In items two
and three, Cvent “describe[s] the perceived factual bases for [its]
opinions” “to convince readers of the legitimacy of [the] opinion”
that RainFocus is intellectually dishonest and untrustworthy. See
id. (cleaned up). And item four presents RainFocus’s alleged
misdeeds as a settled fact. So the common usage of the language
at issue cuts against calling the statements mere opinion.

¶27 Furthermore, whether RainFocus stole from Cvent is
capable of being objectively verified as true or false and will, in
fact, be so verified in the Federal Action. Cvent asserts that the
statements are verifiable only to the extent they are true
statements about the Federal Action, but in so saying, Cvent is
attempting to have its cake and eat it too. Not all the
communications at issue carefully couch each allegation in
language like “we claim in the Federal Action that RainFocus stole
our source code.” Therefore, what is objectively verifiable—for at
least some of the statements—is not that Cvent made these claims
in the Federal Action but that RainFocus actually stole from
Cvent. And this will be objectively verified through the Federal
Action, which Cvent filed to prove that RainFocus did, in fact, do
these things. This supports our finding that the alleged statements
are factual rather than opinion-based.

¶28 We acknowledge that items one, two, and three include
some verbal signals that Cvent is sharing its own conclusions or
beliefs. But in items two and three, there are also multiple
statements whose plain meaning and verifiability are clearly
factual (including “we have evidence that they actually . . .”), and
the alleged defamation in item four carries no verbal signals
indicating opinion. Therefore, we are convinced that, for at least
some of the allegedly defamatory language, the factors of
common meaning and objective verifiability lean toward fact.

 20210611-CA                    17                2023 UT App 32
                        RainFocus v. Cvent

B.     Full Context of the Statements

¶29 Next, we consider “the full context of the statement—for
example, the entire article or column—in which the defamatory
statement is made.” West v. Thomson Newspapers, 872 P.2d 999,
1018 (Utah 1994). The context of the allegedly defamatory
statements in items one, three, and four is that of emailed
communications among CEO or General Counsel and clients or
prospective clients, and item two’s context is that of a phone call
among CEO, General Counsel, another Cvent employee, and a
representative of a client company. In these contexts, clients or
prospective clients might reasonably expect CEO and General
Counsel to have inside information they could rely on as truth. See
GeigTech East Bay LLC v. Lutron Elecs. Co., No. 18 Civ. 5290 (CM),
2019 WL 1768965, *9 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 4, 2019) (“An average reader
might account for [the company president’s] bias, somewhat
neutralizing the sting of his comments. But an average reader
might also conclude, equally reasonably, that [the company
president] is privy to undisclosed and damning information, the
details of which formed the basis for statements.”). Were the
communications to have come instead from a salesperson, for
example, recipients would be more likely to view the statements
as opinion rather than truth because such a person would
presumably not be privy to extensive information about the
Federal Action or Cvent’s evidence and because it would be clear
that the communications were intended solely to convince clients
to do business with Cvent, not to share critical factual information
about RainFocus and the Federal Action.

¶30 Additionally, each communication—when viewed as a
whole—lacks hedging that would put recipients on notice that it
was merely conveying Cvent’s opinion.9 For example, item one’s

9. Phrases like “we think” “in and of themselves do not save the
statements in issue from being defamatory.” ZAGG, Inc. v.
                                                  (continued…)

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                        RainFocus v. Cvent

only language indicating that the allegations against RainFocus
are Cvent’s own conclusions is also interpretable as the CEO
sharing a factual conclusion based on evidence to which he was
privy. Item two contains no hedging, and the only language from
the call clearly signaling opinion relates to Cvent’s optimism for
succeeding in the Federal Action, leaving many other statements
averred as fact, such that the communication appears factual
rather than opinion-based. Item three contains three statements
indicating what Cvent “believe[s]” about RainFocus’s actions,
and contextually it presents the allegations as claims in the
Federal Action, but there is also strong language pointing to
Cvent’s evidence about RainFocus’s actual wrongdoing, so the
strongest statements and the email as a whole read more as
expressions of fact than as expressions of opinion. And item four
contains no hedging or cautious language indicating that it is
opinion, so the email reads as fact-based.

¶31 Furthermore, there is very little language in the
communications that is exaggerated or hyperbolic. This cuts
against a finding of opinion because courts have interpreted such
language as a signal of opinion. See, e.g., West, 872 P.2d at 1010
(“Exaggerated commentary such as this is not likely to damage
[one’s] reputation. Other courts have found exaggerated editorial

Catanach, No. 12-4399, 2012 WL 4462813 at *3 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 27,
2012) (citing Milkovich v. Lorain J. Co., 497 U.S. 1, 18 (1990))
(applying Utah law). “It would undermine the law of defamation
if speakers or authors could simply employ a talismanic word
formula to absolve themselves of slander or libel.” Id. But phrases
indicating that what follows is the author’s opinion are still
noteworthy in considering the totality of the circumstances. We
expect that the more an allegedly defamatory statement bangs the
gong of objective verifiability, the more hedging and careful
couching as opinion would be necessary to keep it in the realm of
opinion.

 20210611-CA                    19               2023 UT App 32
                         RainFocus v. Cvent

commentary not defamatory.”); id. (collecting cases); Spencer v.
Glover, 2017 UT App 69, ¶ 12, 397 P.3d 780 (“The phrase ‘worst
ever’ expresses [the defendant’s] subjective belief and amounts to
rhetorical hyperbole.” (cleaned up)); see also Greenbelt Coop. Publ’g
Ass’n v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6, 14 (1970) (“[E]ven the most careless
reader must have perceived that the word was no more than
rhetorical hyperbole, a vigorous epithet . . . .”). This principle that
hyperbole signals opinion accounts for the effect exaggerated
language often has on readers. See Jacob v. Bezzant, 2009 UT 37,
¶ 29, 212 P.3d 535 (“Newspaper readers expect that statements in
editorials will be more exaggerated and polemicized than hard
news. Readers are therefore less likely to form personal animus
toward an individual based on statements made in an editorial.”
(cleaned up)). There are a few alleged statements in item two that
could potentially fall into this category of exaggerated or
hyperbolic language, such as the statement that a third-party
expert called this case “the most egregious example of IP theft
they have ever seen.” However, this statement convinces the
hearer not that Cvent is sharing its own exaggerated opinion but
that the truth of Cvent’s allegations has been confirmed by an
independent expert. Besides this statement, most others in item
two are not hyperbolic, and there are no statements in the other
items that fall into this category. What’s more, the tone in all four
communications is serious and professional, supporting an
interpretation that Cvent is conveying factual information.

¶32 We acknowledge that each item contains language that
clearly connects the allegedly defamatory statements to the
Federal Action. This context militates in favor of opinion because
the recipients would expect Cvent to have an opinion about the
lawsuit as a party therein. However, in light of the reality that
these statements are from Cvent’s CEO and General Counsel and
use language either boldly asserting RainFocus’s wrongdoing or
pointing to evidence Cvent has of such wrongdoing with only
minimal—if any—signaling of opinion and virtually no

 20210611-CA                      20                2023 UT App 32
                         RainFocus v. Cvent

exaggeration, the explicit or implied references to the Federal
Action are not sufficient for us to characterize the alleged
communications as opinion.

C.     Broader Setting

¶33 Finally, we examine “the broader setting in which the
statement appears.” See West, 872 P.2d at 1018. Our case law
confirms that the setting of alleged defamation is critical. In West
v. Thomson Newspapers, 872 P.2d 999, 1018 (Utah 1994), our
supreme court determined that an article was a protected opinion
“in part because it was published in a weekly editorial column.
The article’s publication in that setting was enough to indicate to
readers that the statements were not hard news and argued
strongly in favor of finding the statements to be protected
opinion.” Spencer, 2017 UT App 69, ¶ 19 (cleaned up) (discussing
West, 872 P.2d at 1020).

¶34 In Spencer v. Glover, 2017 UT App 69, 397 P.3d 780, we also
considered the setting important where an attorney sued a former
client for defamation based on a negative online review. Id. ¶ 19.
We stated,

       [O]nline reviews communicate a person’s
       experience with and opinion of a business. Some
       types of writing or speech by custom or convention
       signal to readers or listeners that what is being read
       or heard is likely to be opinion, not fact. The
       presence of [the former client’s] objectionable
       statements in an online review platform signals to
       readers that he was communicating his negative
       opinion about [the attorney].

Id. (cleaned up).

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                        RainFocus v. Cvent

¶35 Likewise, in Jacob v. Bezzant, 2009 UT 37, 212 P.3d 535, our
supreme court held that there was no defamatory meaning in an
election notice because “the statement came within a heated
political campaign” and “was an editorial.” Id. ¶ 30. The court
noted that “[p]olitical speech enjoys the broadest protection under
the First Amendment” and that editorials are “traditionally a
source of political invective.” Id. ¶ 29. Therefore, it found the
editorial to be “part of the healthy political exchange that is the
foundation of our system of free speech and free elections.” Id.

¶36 The broader setting here is that of Cvent reaching out to
RainFocus’s clients or prospective clients to discourage them from
doing business with RainFocus by sharing allegations from the
Federal Action that RainFocus misappropriated Cvent’s trade
secrets and tortiously interfered with its business. We cannot
broadly extend the protection of opinion to situations where a
company intentionally injures the business prospects of another
by reaching out to its clients or prospective clients and repeating
allegations made in a lawsuit. “At its core, an action for
defamation is intended to protect an individual’s interest in
maintaining a good reputation,” Spencer, 2017 UT App 69, ¶ 7
(cleaned up), and expanding the protections of opinion in the way
Cvent wants would give companies license to freely tarnish a
competitor’s reputation in private, targeted communications
undercutting their business so long as recipients are on notice that
a lawsuit is pending. This cannot be right. We have already
discussed the undesirability of this outcome in the context of the
judicial proceeding privilege, see supra ¶¶ 17–19, and we are no
more inclined to invite such an outcome in this context.

¶37 Furthermore, accepting Cvent’s position that the alleged
statements were mere opinion is illogical. Cvent’s purpose in
reaching out to the third parties was ostensibly to inform those
companies that RainFocus was intellectually dishonest—because
it stole from Cvent—and, accordingly, to warn those companies
against doing business with RainFocus because it was

 20210611-CA                    22                2023 UT App 32
                         RainFocus v. Cvent

untrustworthy. But if Cvent’s accusations that RainFocus stole its
source code and misappropriated trade secrets were mere opinion
and not clearly communicated as such, then Cvent itself would be
intellectually dishonest. As discussed above, we do not believe
the statements were clearly communicated as opinion, so Cvent’s
own reputation relies on these communications being factual (and
correct). If the recipients cannot trust that Cvent’s very serious
allegations are factual, they would not be able to trust further
serious, professional, private communications presenting what
appear to be facts from Cvent’s CEO and General Counsel.

¶38 We acknowledge that this setting may favor an
interpretation of opinion to the extent that clients or prospective
clients would expect Cvent to have opinions about RainFocus’s
actions and about Cvent’s prospects of prevailing in the Federal
Action. And we agree that clients would recognize Cvent’s
interest in convincing them to do business with Cvent instead of
RainFocus, making the clients likely to treat Cvent’s comments on
this topic with some skepticism. However, in the context of
intentional, private, and targeted undercutting of a competitor’s
business by sharing alleged facts, we conclude that the broader
setting strongly favors an interpretation of the alleged
communications as factual in nature.

¶39 We find the difference between the setting in the present
case and the settings in West, Spencer, and Jacob to be significant.10

10. Cvent would like us to adopt the “predictable opinion”
doctrine discussed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in
Information Control Corp. v. Genesis One Computer Corp., 611 F.2d
781 (9th Cir. 1980), but we decline to do so. There, an electronics
products manufacturer sued a marketing firm for defamation
based on a statement made by counsel and published in a press
release referring to the manufacturer’s separate suit for breach of
contract and misrepresentation that, “in the opinion of [the
                                                     (continued…)

 20210611-CA                     23                2023 UT App 32
                         RainFocus v. Cvent

Private emails from a company’s CEO and general counsel are not
traditional sources of contentious and lively debate like editorials
and online forums. And we do not identify a strong public interest
in preserving a right for businesses to undercut competitors by
reaching out to their clients or prospective clients and spreading
defamatory allegations. Therefore, we conclude that the broader

marketing firm’s] management, the action by [the manufacturer]
is intended as a device by [the manufacturer] to avoid payment of
its obligations.” Id. at 783 (cleaned up). The court stated that “even
apparent statements of fact may assume the character of
statements of opinion . . . when made in public debate, heated
labor dispute, or other circumstances in which an audience may
anticipate efforts by the parties to persuade others to their
positions by use of epithets, fiery rhetoric or hyperbole.” Id. at 784
(cleaned up). The court reasoned that when the “loyalties and
subjective motives of the parties are reciprocally attacked and
defended in the media and other public forums, the statement is
less likely to be understood as a statement of fact rather than as a
statement of opinion.” Id. Accordingly, the court ruled that the
statements were non-actionable opinion. Id.
        We note a critical distinction where the broader setting
here was not “in the media and other public forums.” Id. In such
public forums, both parties are able to share their opinions about
the litigation in an attempt to sway public opinion. But here, the
communications at issue were private, and RainFocus had no
opportunity to respond to Cvent’s allegations or attempt to sway
public opinion. Accordingly, we decline Cvent’s invitation to
embrace the predictable opinion doctrine in the context of a
company privately sharing allegations to undercut a competitor’s
business. We also note our concern that embracing this doctrine
carries many of the risks that the excessive publication doctrine is
designed to counter. See supra ¶ 15. At this time, we do not address
whether these doctrines can or ought to coexist in Utah
defamation law.

 20210611-CA                     24                2023 UT App 32
                        RainFocus v. Cvent

setting leans strongly against treating Cvent’s statements as
opinion.

D.     Totality of the Circumstances

¶40 In considering the totality of the circumstances, we
conclude that Cvent’s statements should be treated as statements
of fact rather than statements of opinion. First, the common usage
or meaning of the words leans toward interpreting the alleged
statements about RainFocus’s purported wrongdoing as factual,
though not equally for each statement. Second, within each of the
four items, there are at least some statements that are objectively
verifiable. Third, in considering the full context of the statements,
each comes from Cvent’s CEO or General Counsel, both of whom
would be expected to have significant information related to the
Federal Action and the truth of its allegations—the same
allegations repeated in the statements at issue. The statements are
also not particularly careful to couch allegations in language
indicating opinion and do not employ hyperbole or exaggeration
but rather come across as serious allegations of fact. And fourth,
the broader setting weighs heavily against viewing the statements
as opinion. So while some of the communications are more clearly
factual than others, we conclude that there is sufficient reason to
find all of them to be statements of fact rather than opinion.

¶41 We note again that we are not deciding that Cvent’s alleged
statements are defamatory but rather that they are subject to a
defamatory meaning. See O’Connor v. Burningham, 2007 UT 58,
¶ 26, 165 P.3d 1214. Accordingly, for them to be found
defamatory, they must be proven to have been made by Cvent
and must also be proven to be false. See Jensen v. Sawyers, 2005 UT
81, ¶ 35, 130 P.3d 325. Cvent has pursued the Federal Action to
prove the truth of its claims, and its success therein would protect
these alleged statements from RainFocus’s defamation suit.

 20210611-CA                     25               2023 UT App 32
                       RainFocus v. Cvent

                        CONCLUSION

¶42 We disagree with the district court that Cvent’s statements
are nondefamatory as either truth or opinion. Accordingly, we
reverse the district court’s dismissal of RainFocus’s defamation
claims. We likewise reverse the dismissal of the claim for
intentional interference with economic relations, which was based
on the alleged defamation constituting “improper means.” We
remand to the district court for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.

 20210611-CA                   26              2023 UT App 32