Cuevas v. Harvard University Press

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York

Cuevas v. Harvard University Press

269 A.D.2d 328, 703 N.Y.S.2d 916, 2000 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 2225

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York·Decided February 29, 2000·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

—Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Louise Gruner Gans, J.), entered September 15, 1999, which, inter alia, denied defendants’ motion, in this defamation action, to dismiss the complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) (1) and (7), unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The motion court properly found defendants’ statements regarding plaintiff to be “reasonably susceptible of a defamatory meaning” (Aronson v Wiersma, 65 NY2d 592, 594), and of a kind tending “ ‘to expose a person to hatred, contempt or aversion, or to induce an evil or unsavory opinion of him in the minds of a substantial number of the community’ ” (Golub v Enquirer/Star Group, 89 NY2d 1074, 1076). Defendants’ claim of privilege pursuant to Civil Rights Law § 74 was properly rejected, inasmuch as the allegedly defamatory passages were not a fair and true report of a judicial proceeding (Corporate Training Unlimited v National Broadcasting Co., 868 F Supp 501, 508-509).

We have reviewed defendants’ remaining contentions and find them unavailing. Concur — Rosenberger, J. P., Mazzarelli, Ellerin, Rubin and Andrias, JJ.

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—Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Louise Gruner Gans, J.), entered September 15, 1999, which, inter alia, denied defendants’ motion, in this defamation action, to dismiss the complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) (1) and (7), unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The motion court properly found defendants’ statements regarding plaintiff to be “reasonably susceptible of a defamatory meaning” (Aronson v Wiersma, 65 NY2d 592, 594), and of a kind tending “ ‘to expose a person to hatred, contempt or aversion, or to induce an evil or unsavory opinion of him in the minds of a substantial number of the community’ ” (Golub v Enquirer/Star Group, 89 NY2d 1074, 1076). Defendants’ claim of privilege pursuant to Civil Rights Law § 74 was properly rejected, inasmuch as the allegedly defamatory passages were not a fair and true report of a judicial proceeding (Corporate Training Unlimited v National Broadcasting Co., 868 F Supp 501, 508-509).

We have reviewed defendants’ remaining contentions and find them unavailing. Concur — Rosenberger, J. P., Mazzarelli, Ellerin, Rubin and Andrias, JJ.

Cuevas v. Harvard University Press, 269 A.D.2d 328, 703 N.Y.S.2d 916, 2000 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 2225 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2000).

Pincite

269 A.D.2d 328 (Cuevas v. Harvard University Press) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Opinion

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