Elder v. 21st Century Media Newspaper, LLC

Citations

• 204 Conn. App. 414

Syllabus

The plaintiff attorney sought damages from the defendant reporter, K, and the defendant publishers for, inter alia, defamation in connection with an article written by K and articles published by the publishers. The articles concerned a Superior Court decision that resulted in the plain- tiff's one year suspension from the practice of law for a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct. The defendants filed motions for summary judgment claiming that, as a matter of law, the published matter was not actionable because the plaintiff's claims were barred by the fair report privilege, which applies to the publication of defamatory matter in an accurate report of an official action or proceeding. The trial court granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment and rendered judgment thereon, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held that the trial court properly rendered summary judgment in favor of the defendants: this court declined to address the plaintiff's unpreserved claim that the evidence supporting the defendants' motions was insufficient because it was improperly authenticated, as that claim was not raised before the trial court; moreover, the plaintiff's claim that the defendants failed to submit proof of their reliance on a government document as the source of the articles was unavailing because the defendants were not required to submit such proof to avail themselves of the fair report privilege and the articles were protected by that privilege because they conveyed substantially fair, true and accurate accounts of an official action or proceeding, as they contained language that was substantially similar to that of the court decision, the defendants were not required to conduct an impartial investigation as to the underlying facts of that decision, and their omission of facts that might have placed the plaintiff under less harsh public scrutiny and the inclusion of a quotation that was not attributed to a government document or proceed-