In Doe v. Doe, No. 155961/2020, 2024 WL 3549750 (N.Y. Sup Ct, New York County July 25, 2024), the court granted plaintiff’s motion to dismiss defendant’s counterclaims alleging the filing of a false police report and complaints to child protective services.
The court summarized the facts as follows:
It is undisputed that Plaintiff was employed as a nanny by Defendant and his wife, and that after Plaintiff was hired, she and Defendant engaged in sexual activity on several occasions. In her Complaint, Plaintiff alleges Defendant sexually harassed her multiple times and that at least the first sexual encounter with Defendant was rape. She states that she believed that she could not tell Defendant no, in part due to their age difference and the power dynamic of their relationship.
Defendant filed the Amended Answer in which he claims that the sex acts were consensual. In furtherance of his counterclaims, he alleges that Plaintiff filed a false police report and made two meritless complaints to child protective services in which she claimed Defendant was sexually abusing his daughter (Amended Answer, 17, 19, 20; see also NYSCEF Doc Nos. 85-86). The Amended Answer alleges that the reports were filed “as a means to further bolster this lawsuit” (Amended Answer, 19). According to the pleading, Plaintiff’s reports were “deemed unfounded” and no additional action was taken by either agency (id.). Defendant also alleges that “on or about December 16th or 17, 2019” Plaintiff “told WITNESS A that she believed she might have been raped by Defendant” and told Defendant’s wife “that Defendant was a ‘creep’ and to be wary of him” (id. at 17).
The elements of defamation, explained the court, are: (1) a false statement that is (2) published to a third party (3) without privilege or authorization and that (4) is one of the types of publications actionable regardless of harm. Furthermore, “[t]he doctrine of qualified immunity shields individuals who act in the discharge of some public or private duty, legal or moral, or in the conduct of [their] own affairs, in a matter where [their] interest is concerned.” [Internal quotation marks omitted.]
Applying the law, the court held that defendant’s amended answer fails to sufficiently allege “actual malice”, noting that “the filing of the police report and complaints to child protective services in and of themselves are insufficient to plead actual malice” and further that plaintiff’s “statements to the police are straightforward and succinct; nothing contained in the report annexed to the papers is excessive or ‘vituperative’ sufficient to support an inference of actual malice.”
It further held that defendant failed to sufficiently allege defamation (in that the amended answer does not state the “place and manner” of the alleged defamatory statements, and that alleged statements were “non-actionable statements of pure opinion”), or abuse of process (finding that the allegations advanced in support of that cause of action were conclusory and insufficient).