Shell Oil Company and Shell International, E&P, Inc. v. Robert Writt

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding, “the privilege prohibits ‘any tort litigation based on the content of the communication’ at issue”
• holding Shell’s alleged defamatory statements about Writt made in a report filed by Shell with the Department of Justice regarding possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act were absolutely privileged
• finding that “statements made during legislative and judicial proceedings” are absolutely privileged
• “The proper administration of justice requires full and free disclosure of information as to criminal activity both by the public and by participants in judicial proceedings.”
• “In Texas, the absolute privilege is also extended to quasi-judicial proceedings and other limited instances in which the benefit of the communication to the general public outweighs the potential harm to an individual.”
• “The fact that a formal proceeding does not eventually occur will not cause a communication to lose its absolutely privileged status; however, it remains that the possibility of a proceeding must have been a serious consideration at the time the communication was made.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).