Opinion
June 5, 1995
Appeal from the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Lama, J.).
Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with costs.
The plaintiff Lewis Wasserman, an attorney hired by the Eastport School District, commenced this action to recover damages for allegedly libelous statements made by the defendant Paul Haller in four letters he wrote which were published in a letters to the editor section of the local weekly newspaper. The defendant, a self-described community activist, moved to dismiss the action pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) (7) and (g).
The letters to the editor were reasonably susceptible of a defamatory meaning and did not constitute personal opinion since they reasonably appeared to contain assertions of objective fact which do not fall within the scope of protected opinion (see generally, Immuno AG. v. Moor-Jankowski, 77 N.Y.2d 235, 243, cert denied 500 U.S. 954; Scott v. Cooper, 215 A.D.2d 368). Words which affect a person in his or her profession by imputing to him or her any kind of fraud, dishonesty, misconduct, or unfitness in conducting one's profession may be actionable (see, Scott v. Cooper, supra; Four Star Stage Light. v. Merrick, 56 A.D.2d 767, 768). We therefore find that the plaintiff sufficiently pleaded his claim to withstand the defendant's motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action.
The defendant's remaining contentions are without merit. Balletta, J.P., O'Brien, Thompson and Ritter, JJ., concur.