## Facts

- A Manhattan landlord sued a tenant who served on the building tenants’ association board amid prolonged disputes over rent increases and a planned cooperative conversion.
- The landlord pursued two remaining slander claims based on statements attributed to the tenant.
- In one conversation with a fellow board member, the tenant allegedly suggested the landlord was paying off a police officer so building-related cars would not receive parking tickets, implying weekly payments to police.
- In a separate incident, the tenant allegedly told building employees the landlord had acted violently and abusively, including allegedly punching the tenant, insulting the tenant’s daughter, and threatening to kill the tenant’s family.
- The landlord sought substantial damages for reputational harm and emotional distress but did not allege special damages.
- After discovery, the tenant moved for summary judgment; the lower courts dismissed the remaining claims.

## Issues

1. Whether the bribery accusation constituted slander per se so that special damages need not be pleaded or proved.
2. Whether the bribery-related remarks between tenants’ association board members were protected by a qualified “common interest” privilege.
3. Whether the landlord raised a triable issue that the tenant spoke with malice sufficient to defeat any qualified privilege (common-law malice or constitutional actual malice).
4. Whether the statements accusing the landlord of violent and abusive conduct were actionable or were substantially true or otherwise insufficient to survive summary judgment.

## Decision

- The court affirmed summary judgment dismissing both remaining slander causes of action.
- As to the bribery accusation, the court treated the analysis as not turning on special damages and held the remarks were covered by a qualified common-interest privilege.
- The court held the landlord failed to present evidence creating a triable issue that the tenant acted with malice sufficient to overcome the privilege.
- As to the statements about violent and abusive conduct, the court upheld dismissal because the record supported findings that the statements were substantially true or otherwise not actionable, and the landlord failed to show a genuine factual dispute.

## Legal Principles

- Slander per se consists of statements that (i) charge a serious crime, (ii) tend to injure another in trade, business, or profession, (iii) assert a loathsome disease, or (iv) impute unchastity to a woman; in these categories, damages are presumed and need not be alleged or proved.
- A qualified “common interest” privilege applies to communications made between persons sharing a common interest or duty in the subject matter, protecting information flow within such relationships.
- A qualified privilege is defeated only by proof of malice, which may be shown by:
  - common-law malice (spite or ill will, or speaking not to further the shared interest but solely to harm the plaintiff), or
  - constitutional actual malice (knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for truth).
- Evidence that a speaker relied on observations and reports from others may negate an inference of reckless disregard, and a contentious relationship alone does not establish that a privileged communication was motivated solely by spite.
- Substantial truth is a complete defense to defamation; on summary judgment, the plaintiff must produce evidence sufficient to raise a material factual dispute on falsity and actionable defamatory meaning.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed dismissal because the bribery-related remarks, made between tenants’ association board members about matters tied to their shared responsibilities, were protected by a common-interest privilege that the landlord could not overcome without evidence of malice, and the separate accusations of violent and abusive conduct were substantially true or otherwise failed to present a triable defamation claim.


Liberman v. Gelstein, 80 N.Y.2d 429 (N.Y. 1992)