Leah Savitt, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. 165 (2020)

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Andrew Borrok, J.), entered November 13, 2019, which, to the extent appealed from as limited by the briefs, granted defendants' motion to dismiss the defamation claims, unanimously affirmed, without costs.

The complaint fails to state a cause of action for slander or libel per se, as none of the allegedly defamatory statements made by defendants accuse plaintiff Leah Savitt of ineptitude in her profession, and the complaint does not allege how, if at all, her professional reputation was damaged by the offending statements (see Ferguson v. Sherman Sq. Realty Corp., 30 A.D.3d 288, 289, 817 N.Y.S.2d 272 [1st Dept. 2006]).  Contrary to plaintiff's contention that the motion court improperly determined on a motion to dismiss that the remarks were not defamatory (except for one, for which no special damages were pleaded), “[w]hether particular words are defamatory presents a legal question to be resolved by the court in the first instance” (Aronson v. Wiersma, 65 N.Y.2d 592, 593, 493 N.Y.S.2d 1006, 483 N.E.2d 1138 [1985]).

We have considered plaintiff's remaining contentions and find them unavailing.