An attorney for a lender did not defame a defendant in a pending Long Island civil mortgage fraud case by commenting to a local newspaper that “I’m looking forward to getting him under oath,” an appellate court has ruled.
“The statements neither impute to [the plaintiff] the commission of a serious crime nor tend to injure him in his trade, occupation or profession, and therefore do not constitute slander per se,” a unanimous panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, ruled in Akpinar v. Moran, 4744. “Nor is plaintiff’s reference to the pending criminal investigation and pending civil complaint sufficient to establish the extrinsic Facts requisite to a claim for defamation by innuendo.”
