The Maryland Court of Appeals applied the judicial privilege to bar defamation complaints based on dissemination of a complaint, even before it is filed, or that is given to the press, provided that the statements are reasonably & rationally related to the proceedings. The decision has an extensive discussion of the various categories of the judicial privilege.
The court’s summary and the first 2 paragraphs of the opinion follow:
Stephen Norman v. Scott Borison, et al., No. 70, September Term, 2010 (Md. Apr. 22, 2011)
Torts – Defamation – Absolute Privilege – Lawyers who publish copies of their state complaint to the press, before it is filed in court; make oral statements to the press in connection thereto; and republish filed versions of their federal complaints on the Internet are protected by an absolute privilege where (1) the reasonably contemplated proceeding satisfies the two-part test in Gersh v. Ambrose, 291 Md. 188, 434 A.2d 547 (1981), (2) the lawyers make the statements, at least in part, to increase awareness of the proposed class action suit and, therefore, make them in "the course of the proceeding," and (3) the lawyers’ statements are related reasonably and rationally to the subject matter of the contemplated proceeding. Opinion by Harrell, J. Alexander Chaudhry ("Chaudhry"), Ali Farahpour ("Farahpour"), and Petitioner, Stephen Norman ("Norman"), owned equal shares in the Maryland-registered limited liability company, Sussex Title ("Sussex"). Respondents here, all lawyers, filed on behalf of their clients a proposed class action lawsuit against multiple defendants-companies, including Sussex, for their alleged participation in "the single largest mortgage scam in Maryland history . . . ." Respondents did not name Norman as a defendant in any version of their original or amended complaints in any court, although, in their second amended complaint in the federal court, Norman was mentioned by name in certain allegations. Norman claims that Respondents defamed him by republishing the pleadings (which contained allegedly defamatory statements) to the press and on the internet, and by making verbal comments to the press about the lawsuit. For reasons to be explained, we hold that, on the circumstances of this case, an absolute privilege adheres to Respondents’ republication of the pleadings in the mortgage scam case, as well as to their public comments about that case. Thus, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals, which, by its reported opinion, affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of Norman’s defamation action. See Norman v. Borison, 192 Md. App. 405, 994 A.2d 1019 (2010).
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