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Case 18-2868, Document 273-2, 08/09/2019, 2628218, Page22 of 25 pleadings, complaints, and briefs—while supposedly based on underlying evidentiary material—can be misleading. Such documents sometimes draw dubious inferences from already questionable material or present ambiguous material as definitive. Moreover, court filings are, in some respects, particularly susceptible to fraud. For while the threat of defamation actions may deter malicious falsehoods in standard publications, this threat is non- existent with respect to certain court filings. This is so because, under New York law (which governs the underlying defamation claim here), “absolute immunity from liability for defamation exists for oral or written statements made . . . in connection with a proceeding before a court.” Thus, although the act of filing a document with a court might be thought to lend that document additional credibility, in fact, allegations appearing in such documents might be less credible than those published elsewhere.” 46 Front, Inc. v. Khalil, 24 N.Y.3d 713, 718 (2015); see also Kelly v. Albarino, 485 F.3d 664, 666 (2d Cir. 2007) (adopting the reasoning of the District Court explaining that this privilege is “the broadest of possible privileges”); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 587 (1977) (“A party to a private litigation or a private prosecutor or defendant in a criminal prosecution is absolutely privileged to publish defamatory matter concerning another in communications preliminary to a proposed judicial proceeding, or in the institution of or during the course and as a part of, a judicial proceeding in which he participates, if the matter has some relation to the proceeding.”). But see note 47, post. +” While common law courts have generally interpreted the litigation privilege broadly, they nevertheless maintain an important (if rarely implemented) limitation on its scope: to qualify for the privilege, a statement must be “material and pertinent to the questions involved.” Front, 24 N.Y.3d at 718 (quoting Youmans 22