COX v. PRUDENTIAL FOUNDATION INC (2018)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Lynn R. Kottler, J.), entered July 3, 2018, which granted defendant's motion for summary judgment only to the extent of dismissing plaintiff's claim of tortious interference with business expectancy, and denied plaintiff's motion for partial summary judgment on his libel claim, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The motion court, applying New Jersey substantive law, properly determined that issues of fact remained whether defendant made a slanderous statement of fact concerning plaintiff which was false and was communicated to a third person (see Feggans v. Billington, 291 N.J. Super 382, 390–391, 677 A.2d 771, 775 [1996] ).  Although defendant's program officer and others denied that she had made the complained of statement, credibility issues remain to be resolved at trial.

Denial of so much of defendant's motion seeking dismissal of plaintiff's libel claim, which had been interposed in an amended complaint, was proper.  The claim, based upon an email produced during discovery in this action, related back to the defamation claims made in the first, timely complaint (see Pickholz v. First Boston, 202 A.D.2d 277, 608 N.Y.S.2d 659 [1st Dept. 1994];  compare Torati v. Hodak, 147 A.D.3d 502, 503, 47 N.Y.S.3d 288 [1st Dept. 2017] ).  The court also properly denied plaintiff partial summary judgment on the libel claim, since factual issues existed including whether defendant's statement was susceptible of a nondefamatory meaning and whether it was false.  The court also properly determined that a qualified privilege applied to the alleged statements, but that issues remained as to whether the privilege was abused (see Williams v. Bell Tel. Labs. Inc., 132 N.J. 109, 121, 623 A.2d 234, 240 [1993] ).

Dismissal of plaintiff's tortious interference with business expectancy claim was proper.  Plaintiff failed to identify a specific prospective economic or contractual relationship that was interfered with (see Printing Mart–Morristown v. Sharp Elecs. Corp., 116 N.J. 739, 751, 563 A.2d 31, 37 [1989] ).