Opinion
8417 Index 158027/16
02-14-2019
METROSEARCH RECOVERIES, LLC, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. CITY OF NEW YORK, et al., Defendants–Respondents.
Trenk & Trenk, LLC, New York (Daniel Trenk of counsel), for appellant. Zachary W. Carter, Corporation Counsel, New York (Melanie T. West of counsel), for respondents.
Trenk & Trenk, LLC, New York (Daniel Trenk of counsel), for appellant.
Zachary W. Carter, Corporation Counsel, New York (Melanie T. West of counsel), for respondents.
Friedman, J.P., Sweeny, Webber, Kahn, Kern, JJ.
Order, Supreme Court, New York County (James E. d'Auguste, J.), entered October 2, 2017, which, to the extent appealed from as limited by the briefs, inter alia, granted defendants' CPLR 3211 motion to dismiss plaintiff's defamation claims, and imposed, sua sponte, sanctions on plaintiff for bringing a frivolous action, unanimously modified, on the law and the facts, to vacate the sanctions, and otherwise affirmed, without costs.
The IAS court properly found that a press conference was sufficiently related to the performance of defendant Stringer's duties that the statements made therein were absolutely privileged (see Lombardo v. Stoke, 18 N.Y.2d 394, 400–402, 276 N.Y.S.2d 97, 222 N.E.2d 721 [1966] ).
The IAS court also properly found that the allegations could not give rise to any inference which would support a finding of malice, either in the sense of reckless disregard of the truth or of a statement motivated solely by spite (see Liberman v. Gelstein, 80 N.Y.2d 429, 437–439, 590 N.Y.S.2d 857, 605 N.E.2d 344 [1992] ).
Finally, the court erred in awarding sanctions, both because plaintiff was not given a reasonable opportunity to be heard on this issue (see Rules of Chief Admin of Cts [ 22 NYCRR] § 130–1.1 [d] ) and because plaintiff's arguments were not so clearly meritless as to be deemed frivolous.
Based upon this Court's holding as to privilege, we need not reach the other arguments raised by plaintiff.