In Strum v. Lasry, No. 159889/2024, 2026 WL 1963336 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. June 29, 2026), a sexual harassment case, the court denied plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend their complain to add defamation allegations.
The court’s opinion is instructive on the so-called “litigation privilege” that may be applicable to such claims:
The Court also denies the portion of the motion that seeks to add additional allegations relating to defamation. This Court has long held that absolute immunity from liability for defamation exists for oral and written statements made by attorneys in connection with a proceeding before a court when such words and writings are material and pertinent to the questions involved. The litigation privilege, being absolute, confers immunity from liability regardless of motive.
There is no doubt that all of the attorneys in this case have utilized this privilege to hurl invectives at the opposing party. Plaintiff’s efforts to include some of those assertions are clearly not proper defamation allegations to include in the proposed amended complaint. And neither are the many references to newspaper articles reporting about the ongoing dispute or litigation (Weeden v Lukezic, 201 AD3d 425, 428 [1st Dept 2022] [noting that the publication of a fair and true report of a judicial proceeding is not a basis for a defamation action]). Plaintiff’s proposed amendment appears to cite reporters’ articles that repeat statements made in the context of this litigation. The Court cannot permit the inclusion of so many additional allegations that are based on reports about the instant dispute in light of the above-cited caselaw. In other words, the fact that reporters are interested in this litigation is not a basis for defendants to be liable for defamation. And it is axiomatic that it is not this Court’s role or function to sift through the voluminous proposed pleading and identify which allegations are permissible and which are not when so many of them are not viable.
(Citations and internal quotation marks omitted.)
The court ended its opinion by denying the request for oral argument on the instant motion since doing so “would seem to invite or encourage the distasteful name calling present in both parties’ papers;” noting that “superfluous ad hominem attacks are usually not the most persuasive arguments;” underscoring the importance of civility in litigation; and noting that attorneys are expected to be professional.