MANGAN v. CORPORATE SYNERGIES GROUP, INC. et al
Filing
21
OPINION. Signed by Judge Jerome B. Simandle on 8/1/2011. (TH, )
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY
THOMAS L. MANGAN,
HONORABLE JEROME B. SIMANDLE
Plaintiff,
Civil No. 10-5829 (JBS/KMW)
v.
CORPORATE SYNERGIES GROUP,
INC. and PANTELIS A.
GEORGIADIS,
OPINION
Defendants.
APPEARANCES:
Daniel Bencivenga, Esq.
RAYNES MCCARTY
116 White Horse Pike
Haddon Heights, NJ 08035
Attorney for Plaintiff
Sara A. Begley, Esq.
Wayne C. Stansfield, Esq.
Nipun Jashbhai Patel, Esq.
REED SMITH,LLP
2500 One Liberty Place
1650 Market St.
Philadelphia, Pa 19103
Attorneys for the Defendants
SIMANDLE, District Judge:
I. INTRODUCTION
Plaintiff Thomas L. Mangan brought this action for
defamation against Defendants Corporate Synergies Group (“CSG”)
and Pantellis A. Georgiadis.
Presently this matter is before the
Court on Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s defamation
claim in Count III of the Amended Complaint for failure to state
a claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), Fed. R. Civ. P. [Docket Item
14].
As will be explained below, the Court will deny the motion
in part because the Court finds that Plaintiff has stated a prima
facie case for defamation with regard to certain of Defendants’
alleged statements, but the Complaint does not contain sufficient
facts for Defendants to invoke the affirmative defenses of a
qualified privilege.
II. FACTS
The Court takes the following facts, alleged in Plaintiff’s
Complaint, to be true for the purposes of this motion.
In
September of 2009, Defendant CSG hired Plaintiff to serve as its
chief executive officer.
Am. Compl. ¶¶ 10, 12.
However, on July
1, 2010, Plaintiff was terminated; according to Defendants, the
termination was for cause pursuant to his Employment Agreement.
Id. at ¶¶ 2, 23-24.
The day after Plaintiff’s termination, CSG appointed
Defendant Georgiadis as its new CEO.
Id. at ¶ 61.
That same
day, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant Georgiadis met with members
of CSG’s operating committee and accused Plaintiff of “financial
improprieties,” and stated that CSG had lost faith in Mr.
Mangan’s leadership ability and management skills.
64.
Id. at ¶¶ 63-
According to the Amended Complaint, a few weeks later,
Defendant Georgiadis conducted several town hall meetings with
CSG’s employees and consultants by videoconference.
Id. at ¶ 67.
During these meetings, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant
2
Georgiadis repeated his previous accusations, allegedly implying
that Plaintiff was fired for “cooking the books.”
Id. at ¶ 68.
III. PROCEDURAL HISTORY
In November 2010, Plaintiff commenced suit against CSG and
Defendant Georgiadis, asserting claims for (1) breach of
contract, (2) breach of the implied covenant of good faith and
fair dealing, and (3) defamation.
The Court has subject matter
jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1332(a)(1).1
Defendants responded by filing a partial motion to dismiss
Plaintiff’s claims for breach of the duty of good faith and fair
dealing and defamation, and to strike Plaintiff’s claims for
attorney’s fees.
[Docket Item 8.]
Thereafter, Plaintiff filed
an Amended Complaint, asserting claims for breach of contract and
defamation, but dropping the claim for breach of the duty of good
faith and fair dealing.
[Docket Item 11.]
Defendants then filed
the instant motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s defamation claim, Count
III of the Amended Complaint, for failure to state a claim.
IV. DISCUSSION
A.
Standard of Review
In deciding the Defendants' motion to dismiss pursuant to
Rule 12(b)(6), the Court must “accept all factual allegations as
1
Plaintiff is a resident of Connecticut, Defendant CSG is a
Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in New
Jersey, and Defendant Georgiadis resides in New Jersey.
3
true, construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the
plaintiff, and determine whether, under any reasonable reading of
the complaint, the plaintiff may be entitled to relief.”
Phillips v. County of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 231 (3d Cir. 2008)
(quoting Pinker v. Roche Holdings Ltd., 292 F.3d 361, 374 n.7 (3d
Cir. 2002).
Thus, “to survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint
must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to
‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’”
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949 (quoting Bell Atl. Corp
v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)).
Therefore . . . district courts should conduct a two-part
analysis. First . . . the District Court must accept all of
the complaint's well-pleaded facts as true, but may
disregard any legal conclusions. Second, a District Court
must then determine whether the facts alleged in the
complaint are sufficient to show that the plaintiff has a
‘plausible claim for relief.’
Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 210-11 (3d Cir. 2009)
(citations omitted).
B.
Defamation Claim
The first issue the Court must address is the specificity of
pleading necessary for Plaintiff to survive a motion to dismiss.
In the context of a defamation claim, New Jersey courts apply a
heightened pleading standard, which would require Plaintiff to
refer to the specific words by which Defendants purportedly
defamed Plaintiff.
See Zoneraich v. Overlook Hosp., 212 N.J.
Super. 83, 101 (App. Div. 1986).
Because Plaintiff does not
plead the specific words, Defendants move to dismiss the
4
defamation Claim in Count III as failing to meet the New Jersey
pleading standard.
The Court disagrees.
A federal court sitting in diversity applies the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure, provided the rule in question is valid
and on-point.
See Hanna v. Plumer, 380 U.S. 460, 472 (1965).
Here, Rule 8 is on-point because it articulates the required
federal pleading standard.
Moreover, Defendants do not contend
that Rule 8 embodies an invalid exercise of power under the Rules
Enabling Act.
Thus, the federal pleading standards, not New
Jersey pleading standards, govern the sufficiency of the
Complaint.
See Palladino v. VNA of S. N.J., Inc., 68 F. Supp.
2d. 455, 475 (D.N.J. 1999); see also Ciemniecki v. Parker McCay
P.A., Civ. No. 09-6450, 2010 WL 2326209, at *4 (D.N.J. June 7,
2010).
Under the federal pleading standard, a plaintiff alleging
defamation needs to plead “a short and plain statement of the
claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.”2 Fed. R.
Civ. P. Rule 8(a)(2).
Under Rule 8, pleadings are to be
“liberally construed,” and alerting the defendant of the
allegations made against him is generally sufficient.
Palladino,
68 F. Supp. 2d at 475; see also Cristelli v. Filomena II, Inc.,
2
While state law defines the substantive elements of a claim
based on state law, it does not govern the standard of pleading.
See Palladino v. VNA of S. N.J., Inc., 68 F. Supp. 2d. 455, 475
(D.N.J. 1999). Thus, the specificity with which a defamation
claim brought in federal court must be pled is defined by Rule 8,
and the substantive elements of that claim are governed by state
law.
5
Civ. No. 99-2862, 1999 WL 1081290, at *3 (D.N.J. Dec. 1, 1999)
(“According to Rule 8, a defamation pleading does not need to
cite precise defamatory statements, it must only provide
sufficient notice to the other party of the allegations made
against him.”).
Thus, Mr. Mangan’s pleading must allege the
elements of defamation as defined by New Jersey law to a degree
of sufficient specificity to satisfy the standards outlined in
Rule 8.
To establish defamation under New Jersey law, a plaintiff
must show the defendant (1) made a false and defamatory statement
concerning the plaintiff, (2) communicated the statement to a
third party, and (3) had a sufficient degree of fault.3
Singer
v. Beach Trading Co., 379 N.J. Super. 63, 79 (App. Div. 2005).
In the instant case, Defendants are on notice that Plaintiff
believes Defendant Georgiadis falsely accused Plaintiff of the
following: (1) that Plaintiff engaged in “financial
improprieties”; (2) that “CSG had lost faith in Plaintiff’s
leadership ability and management skills”; (3) that Plaintiff
“had left CSG because he was not performing his job or providing
CSG with the leadership it expected”; and (4) that Plaintiff was
3
The New Jersey Supreme Court has occasionally listed
“unprivileged publication” as an element of a successful
defamation claim. See Leang v. Jersey City Bd. Of Educ., 198
N.J. 557, 585 (2009). However, while a privileged statement
cannot lead to liability, the Supreme Court of New Jersey has
held that privileges in this instance are affirmative defenses to
be established by the defendant. Coleman v. Newark Morning
Ledger Co., 29 N.J. 357, 376 (1959).
6
“misleading CSG employees into believing that CSG was making a
profit when it was not.”
Am. Compl. ¶¶ 66-68.
As explained below, while the second and third of the
alleged defamatory statements above are not sufficient to state a
claim of defamation, the first and last statements are sufficient
to state a defamation claim under Rule 8(a), regardless of
whether New Jersey would apply a more heightened standard to
Plaintiff's pleading if the action was prosecuted in New Jersey
state court.
See Ciemniecki v. Parker McCay P.A., Civ. No. 09-
6450, 2010 WL 2326209, at *4 (D.N.J. June 7, 2010).
1.
False and Defamatory Facts
Defendants argue that the statements relating to Plaintiff’s
dismissal fail to satisfy the requirements for defamation as a
matter of law because the alleged statements were statements of
opinion.
The Court finds that Defendants’ statements criticizing
Plaintiff’s management proficiency and leadership skills are
opinion, but Defendants’ statements that contain underlying
verifiable facts (i.e., that Plaintiff engaged in financial
improprieties, or “cooked the books,” or lied about CSG’s
profitability) constitute mixed opinion and fact which is
sufficient to state a claim.
Under New Jersey law, whether a statement is defamatory
depends on “its content, verifiability, and context.”
N.J. Educ. Assoc., 161 N.J. 152, 167 (1999).
Lynch v.
Accordingly, to
qualify as a defamatory statement, the statement must be able to
7
be proven true or false.
Id.
Statements of pure opinion do not
satisfy this requirement because such statements only “reflect a
state of mind,” and therefore generally “cannot be proved true or
false.”
Id.
However, statements of opinion do not receive “a
wholesale defamation exemption.”
Milkovich v. Lorain Journal
Co., 497 U.S. 1, 18 (1990).
The New Jersey Supreme Court has found that a “mixed
opinion” is one that is “apparently based on facts about the
plaintiff or his conduct that have neither been stated by the
defendant nor assumed to exist by the parties to the
communication.”
(1982).
Kotlikoff v. The Comty. News, 89 N.J. 62, 69
Therefore, opinion statements can trigger liability if
the statements “imply false underlying objective facts.”
Lynch,
161 N.J. at 167; see also Ward v. Zelikovsky, 136 N.J. 516, 53132 (1994) (“The higher the ‘fact content’ of a statement, the
more likely that the statement will be actionable.”) (citations
omitted).
Here, the statements that “CSG had lost faith in Plaintiff’s
leadership ability and his management skills” and that Plaintiff
“had left CSG because he was not performing his job” are rooted
in underlying opinion statements not suitable to move forward in
this defamation claim.
Whether someone has proficient management
skills or leadership skills is an opinion and it not subject to
ready verification.
Instead, such statements merely reflect the
state of mind of CSG’s officers regarding Plaintiff’s job
8
performance and therefore cannot be considered defamatory.
See
Lecours v. Mobil Corp., 2005 WL 3500802, at *6 (N.J. Super. Ct.
App. Div. December 23, 2005) (finding that statements regarding a
plaintiff’s job performance constitute opinion and are not
actionable under a defamation claim); see also Kennedy v. Chubb
Group of Ins. Cos., 60 F. Supp. 2d 384, 389 (D.N.J. 1999)
(holding that generally, statements evaluating an employee’s
performance do not qualify as defamatory); Baldwin v. Univ. of
Texas, 945 F. Supp. 1022, 1035 (S.D. Tex. 1996) (performance
reviews “are permissible expressions of opinion and are not
defamatory as a matter of law”).
Conversely, Defendants’ alleged statements that Plaintiff
engaged in “financial improprieties” or “cooked the books” and
misled CSG employees into believing that CSG was making a profit
are statements of mixed opinion.
Underlying both of Defendant
Georgiadis’ statements are facts indicating that not only did
Plaintiff lie to the company’s employees about CSG’s profit, but
also that Plaintiff engaged in financial improprieties by
“cooking the books”.
These implicit facts underlying the mixed
opinion statements are specifically alleged and with sufficient
evidence, are capable of being proven objectively false by
Plaintiff.
See Moe v. Seton Hall Univ., Civ. No. 09-1424, 2010
WL 1609680, at *8 (D.N.J. 2010) (finding that alleged opinion
statements that implied specific attributes about Plaintiff were
sufficient to constitute defamation).
9
Accordingly, Defendant’s alleged false statements that
Plaintiff lied to CSG employees about CSG’s profitability and
Plaintiff engaged in financial improprieties are mixed opinion
and therefore Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged false and
defamatory statements.
Id.
By contrast, Defendants’ statements
regarding Plaintiff’s management performance and leadership
skills are merely opinion and will be dismissed in Count III.
2.
Communication to a Third Party
To satisfy the communication element of a defamation claim,
the complaint must “plead facts sufficient to identify the
defamer and the circumstances of publication.”
Printing Mart-
Morristown v. Sharp Electronics Corp., 116 N.J. 739, 767 (1989).
Since all of the CSG’s employees were allegedly present during
the town hall meetings, the audience is a narrow population that
can be easily identified by Defendants.
Moreover, communicating
an alleged false statement to “employees and management” is
sufficient to constitute publication.
Cruz v. HBS, Civ. No. 10-
135, 2010 WL 2989987, at *3 (D.N.J. July 26, 2010).
The Defendants argue that the alleged defamatory statements
fail to establish the necessary element of communication to a
third party because they were made internally to employees and
agents.
Defendants rely on Petrocco v. Dover Gen. Hosp. & Med.
Ctr., 138 N.J. 264 (1994), arguing that an intra-organizational
communication is not a “publication.”
10
However, that principle is contrary to the weight of
authority in New Jersey.
See Cruz, Civ. No. 10-135, 2010 WL
298987, at *7 (finding that New Jersey courts reject “any
brightline rule” and assess the circumstances of the allegedly
defamatory claim to see if they justify recognizing a privilege);
see also Wein v. Thompson, Civ. No. 04-2199, 2006 WL 2465220, *10
(D.N.J. Aug. 23, 2006) (holding that merely being co-workers is
not sufficient to defeat a defamation claim if the plaintiff
shows that the recipients “had no reason to receive such
information”).
Instead, statements made internally by one member
of an organization to other members are assumed to be published,
so New Jersey courts have instead addressed whether the statement
was protected by a qualified privilege.
See Abella v. Barringer
Res., Inc., 260 N.J. Super 92, 99 (Ch. Div. 1992) (“A defamatory
statement is published when it is communicated . . . to one other
than the person defamed.”) (citing Restatement (2d) of Torts §
577 (1)); see also Cruz, Civ. No. 10-135, 2010 WL 2989987, at *7.
Thus this Court analyzes the argument as a claim for a qualified
privilege which will be addressed below.
Therefore, Plaintiff
has sufficiently alleged publication.
3.
Fault
As a constitutional matter, the Supreme Court requires some
showing of fault for a defamation claim.
Gertz v. Robert Welch,
Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 347 (1974); see also Steaks Unlimited, Inc.
v. Deaner, 623 F.2d 264, 272 (3d Cir. 1980) (finding that for a
11
plaintiffs’ defamation claim, the “First Amendment forbids states
to impose liability without fault”).
However, case law has
developed two different fault standards.
If the plaintiff is a
private person, he or she need show only that the defendant was
negligent.
McLaughlin v. Rosanio, Bailets & Talamo, Inc., 331
N.J. Super. 303, 314 (App. Div. 2000); see also Feggans v.
Billington, 291 N.J. Super. 382, 391 (App. Div. 1996) (requiring
a showing that defendant negligently failed “to ascertain the
truth or falsity of the statement before communicating it”).
While if the plaintiff is a public figure, he or she need prove
that the defendant was motivated by “actual malice”,4 requiring
that the defendant either knew the statement was false or
recklessly disregarded its falsity.
Feggans, 291 N.J. Super. at
391.
Here, the sufficiency of pleading fault is not contested.
Plaintiff alleges that the statements made by Defendant
Georgiadis concerning Plaintiff were “malicious, reckless and/or
negligently made.”
Am. Compl. ¶ 70.
Defendants have not
contested this issue and neither party discusses whether Mr.
4
The actual-malice standard will also apply when the alleged
defamatory statement involves a matter of public concern. See
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 279-80 (1964); see
also Turf Lawnmower Repair, Inc. v. Bergen Record Corp., 139 N.J.
392, 413 (1995). Accordingly, a publication by a media defendant
concerning public health and safety, a highly regulated industry,
or allegations of fraud will involve a matter of public concern.
See Turf Lawnmower, 139 N.J. at 410. To determine if all other
media and non-media cases involve a public concern, courts
consider the content, form, and context of the speech. See Dun &
Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749, 761
(1985).
12
Mangan is a private or public figure or if the defamatory
statements involve a public concern.
4.
Privileged
Defamation claims involve a balancing between “protecting
reputations against false attacks and serving the public interest
of free communication.”
at *4.
Cruz, Civ. No. 10-135, 2010 WL 298987,
In New Jersey, the common law qualified privilege is used
to strike this balance.
Dairy Stores v. Sentinel Publ’g Co., 104
N.J. 125, 136-37 (1986).
Here, Defendants argue that the alleged
defamatory statements are protected by the qualified privilege
because the statements were made to co-workers and those with an
interest in CSG’s business affairs.
A communication is privileged if the person communicating
the alleged defamation and the audience have a “commensurate
interest or duty in the communication.”
Cruz, Civ. No. 10-135,
2010 WL 2989987, at *4.
The test to determine whether a communication is entitled to
the common interest privilege requires the Court to look to
(1) the appropriateness of the occasion on which the
defamatory information is published, (2) the legitimacy of
the interest thereby sought to be protected or promoted, and
(3) the pertinence of the receipt of that information by the
recipient.
Prof’l Recovery Servs., Inc. v. General Elec. Capital Corp., 642
F. Supp. 2d 391, 401 (D.N.J. 2009) (citing Bainhauer, 215 N.J. at
37).5
5
A qualified privilege is an affirmative defense. Binkewitz v.
Allstate Ins. Co., 222 N.J. Super. 501, 517 (App. Div. 1988)
(“Just as in a defamation action, the qualified privilege is a
13
Simply being co-workers is not sufficient to show a
qualified privilege existed, because there must be some evidence
of a common interest.
See Cruz v. HSBC, Civ. No. 10-135, 2010 WL
2989987, at *6 (D.N.J. July 26, 2010).
For example, in
Bainhauer, the New Jersey Appellate Division found that a
surgeon's report to his supervisor and fellow surgeons regarding
an anesthesiologist’s poor performance was entitled to a
qualified privilege because of the public's interest in quality
healthcare.
215 N.J. Super. at 38-40.
Similarly, the Defendants in Professional Recovery Services
were granted the privilege because the Defendants had a
legitimate interest and duty to prevent consumer fraud.
642 F.
Supp. 2d at 401-02 (reasoning that the public interest in
preventing fraud requires that those charged with responding to
consumer security threats “be permitted to engage in selfregulation without excessive fear of defamation”).
Even
defamation statements relating to the firing of an employee for
insubordination require some apparent level of common interest in
order for the communication to be privileged.
For example, in
Whiting v. Computer Asscoc., Inc., all statements regarding
plaintiff’s alleged insubordination were made between
supervisors, co-workers, human resource personnel, and the legal
defense which must be raised by defendant.”). Thus, as an
affirmative defense, a motion to dismiss on the basis of a
qualified privilege can be granted if the defense is “apparent
from the face of the complaint.” Bethel v. Jendoco Constr.
Corp., 570 F.2d 1168, 1174 n.10 (3d Cir. 1978).
14
department.
Civ. No. 01-1583, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23539, at
*19-20 (D.N.J. Aug. 20, 2001).
A qualified privilege was granted
because all of those individuals had “a legitimate interest in
knowing the reason for [Plaintiff’s] discharge.”
Id. at *20.
Applying the Bainhauer test to the present case, it is not
clear from the face of the Complaint that Defendants are entitled
to a qualified privilege.
First, the Complaint simply states
that the publication occurred internally to CSG employees and
consultants at a CSG town hall meeting.
These facts provide no
indication that the town hall meetings were appropriate occasions
to disseminate information about CSG’s former CEO and his alleged
wrongdoings.
The Court would need to take notice of specific
facts outside the Complaint to determine if the town hall
meetings were appropriate occasions to publish the alleged
defamatory statements.
Consideration of matters outside the
pleadings, other than documents referenced in or attached to the
pleadings, is not generally permitted in a Rule 12(b)(6) motion
to dismiss.
Second, while co-workers certainly have some degree of
common interest regarding the future of their company, the
Complaint does not indicate any common interest relating to the
alleged falsehoods and financial improprieties of the former CEO.
The Court would again need additional facts, such as the
financial health of the Defendants’ company or its exposure to
outside investigation or regulation, or the purpose of such
15
statements for training or setting an example for employees in
the audience, to determine the scope of any such shared interest
among the employees.
Moreover, the Complaint alleges that the
statements were also communicated to outside consultants, and
there is no information regarding what common interest the
outside consultants shared with the employees of CSG.
Therefore,
it is impossible at the motion to dismiss stage to assess the
legitimacy of those interests.
Third, the recipients are identified as “all employees and a
number of its outside consultants.”
This is not enough
information for the Court to assess whether their receipt of the
statements was pertinent due to the large amount of attendees at
the meetings.
See Cruz, Civ. No. 10-135, 2010 WL 2989987, at *6
(finding that a supervisor might need to know about alleged
misdeeds, but other colleagues may have no such interest).
While
it is not hard to imagine that this audience of employees and
paid consultants was entitled to know why their former CEO was
terminated and the misdeeds that were under investigation, it is
not evident from the pleadings alone that this is so.
Thus,
absent sufficient facts regarding the circumstances surrounding
the publication, the interests involved, and the pertinence of
the communication to those who received the information, the
Court cannot yet determine if the qualified privilege applies.6
6
Because this Court does not find that a qualified privilege
exists on the face of the Complaint, there is no discussion
regarding whether the privilege was abused.
16
Plaintiff has pleaded enough facts to form the basis of a
plausible defamation claim, but the Complaint does not contain
facts sufficient to make the existence of the affirmative defense
of a qualified privilege “apparent from the face of the
complaint.”
Bethel, 570 F.2d at 1174.
C. Claim Against Defendant Georgiadis as an Individual
Defendant Georgiadis argues that Count III of the Complaint
fails as a matter of law because there is no allegation that
Defendant Georgiadis was acting outside the scope of his
employment.
The Court finds that this argument is meritless.
While New Jersey law supports the proposition that employees
cannot be found liable for tortious interference with a coemployee’s contractual advantage (a claim that is not made in
this action), the same is not true for other torts including
defamation.7
See Moe v. Seton Hall Univ., Civ. No. 09-1424, 2010
WL 1609680, at *9 (D.N.J. April 20, 2010).
“A director or
officer who commits [a] tort [excluding tortious interference of
contract]. . . is liable to third persons injured” even though
liability for the same tort “may also attach to the corporation.”
Van Natta Mech. Corp. V. Di Staulo, 277 N.J. Super. 175, 192
(App. Div. 1994); see also Moe v. Seton Hall Univ., at *9
(“Corporate officers are liable to persons injured by their own
torts, even though they were acting on behalf of the
corporation.”).
7
The defendants cite only to cases regarding tortious
interference with a contract.
17
Accordingly, Defendant Georgiadis is not excused from
liability to Mr. Mangan for the mere fact that the alleged false
statements were made in his capacity as CEO.
IV. CONCLUSION
The Court concludes that Defendants’ motion to dismiss Count
III must be denied in part because the statements that Plaintiff
engaged in “financial improprieties” and Plaintiff misled
employees into believing that CSG was making a profit state a
prima facie case for defamation, and because the Complaint does
not contain enough facts for Defendants to invoke the affirmative
defense of a qualified privilege; Defendants may renew their
motion for qualified privilege by supplying an appropriate
factual context through a motion for summary judgment.
However,
the statements regarding Plaintiff’s management and leadership
skills constitute opinion and are not considered defamatory;
Plaintiff’s claims of defamation with regard to these statements
in Count III will therefore be dismissed.
Additionally,
Defendant Georgiadis’s argument that he cannot be held liable in
tort for alleged actions conducted on behalf of CSG is denied.
The accompanying Order shall be entered.
August 1, 2011
Date
s/ Jerome B. Simandle
JEROME B. SIMANDLE
United States District Judge
18
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