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Case 18-2868, Document 276, 08/09/2019, 2628224, Page25 of 77
The New York Court of Appeals reversed. The risk of admitting such evidence, the court
held, is the jury may “charge against defendant a separate, distinct libel (not pleaded in [the]
complaint) by someone else, contrary to the rule that [t]he original publisher of a libel is not
responsible for its subsequent publication by others.” Geraci, 938 N.E.2d at 921. Accordingly,
the court held, “‘[A]bsent a showing that [defendant] approved or participated in some other
manner in the activities of the third-party republisher{[,|’ there is no basis for allowing the jury to
consider the article containing the republished statement as a measure of plaintiff's damages
attributable to defendants.” /d. (emphasis supplied; quoting Karaduman v. Newsday, Inc., 416
N.E.2d 557, 560 (1980)).
Neither Ms. Maxwell nor her agents approved or participated in any activity of any media
organization in its decision to publish or not to publish any part of the January 2015 statement.
EXHIBIT J ¥ 2; K ff 2-3.. Accordingly, “there is no basis for allowing the jury to consider [any]
article containing the republished statement as a measure of plaintiff's damages attributable to
[Ms. Maxwell],” id. Plaintiff should be barred from introducing any evidence of any
republication of the January 2015 statement by any non-party. See, e.g., Soley v. Wasserman, No.
8 CIV. 9262 KMW FM, 2013 WL 3185555, at *8 (S.D.N.Y. June 21, 2013) (precluding plaintiff
from adducing evidence intended to establish claim on which court had entered partial summary
judgment).
Il. Summary judgment is warranted under the New York Constitution.
A. The January 2015 statement constitutes nonactionable opinion.
“Whether particular words are defamatory presents a legal question to be resolved by
the court in the first instance.’” Germain v. M & T Bank Corp., 111 F. Supp. 3d 506, 534
(S.D.N.Y. 2015) (brackets omitted; quoting Celle v. Filipino Reporter Enters. Inc., 209 F.3d 163,
18
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Document Details
| Filename | DocumentCloud_Epstein_Docs_p00074.png |
| File Size | 319.4 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 94.1% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 2,018 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-04 12:22:24.002381 |