Cojocaru v. City University of New York

Background

Claudia Cojocaru and Naomi Haber sued City University of New York, doing business as John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and several professors. They alleged gender discrimination, retaliation, and, as to some professors, gender-based violence. They also alleged that John Jay failed to investigate properly and take corrective action.

Ric Curtis, Leonardo Dominguez, and Barry Spunt denied the allegations and asserted counterclaims against Cojocaru and Haber. All three asserted defamation, libel, and slander claims based on an interview with the New York Post. Curtis also relied on statements allegedly made to government investigators and on a second New York Post interview. Dominguez and Spunt relied in part on text messages that Cojocaru allegedly sent to her former fiancé. Curtis separately asserted defamation claims based on Cojocaru’s social-media posts and a claim for tortious interference with contractual and business relations.

The plaintiffs moved to dismiss the counterclaims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which requires a pleading to allege enough facts to make a claim legally plausible. For this motion, the court treated the factual allegations in the counterclaims as true and drew reasonable inferences for the counterclaimants.

Defamation claims

The court held that the defamation claims based on Cojocaru’s text messages to her former fiancé were time barred. New York generally allows one year for a defamation claim, measured from publication. The original counterclaims were based on the New York Post interviews and did not mention the text messages. The court ruled that the later allegations about the messages did not relate back to the original counterclaims because the messages were separate publications sent to a different recipient and included distinct accusations.

The court declined to dismiss the defamation claims on the ground that the statements were privileged reports of official proceedings. A report is protected under New York Civil Rights Law § 74 only if it is fair and substantially accurate. Whether the statements fairly described official proceedings, or instead focused on the underlying events, depended on disputed context and could not be resolved at the pleading stage.

The court also rejected the argument that most of the challenged statements were protected opinions. It held that the alleged statements about Curtis encouraging Haber to have sex with other professors, the professors’ alleged misconduct, and comparisons to people involved in the Jeffrey Epstein case could be understood as factual or mixed-opinion statements that implied provable misconduct. The court identified only two statements by Haber as nonactionable opinions: that her experience at John Jay made her suicidal and that the professors “killed [her] spiritually in a way.” Those statements described her personal reaction and were not capable of being proven true or false.

The court held that the counterclaimants sufficiently alleged defamation per se. That category includes statements accusing someone of a serious crime or tending to injure someone in their profession. Because the alleged statements concerned violence, illegal drugs, misconduct toward students, and professional integrity, the court held that damages could be presumed at this stage.

Curtis’s tortious-interference claim

The court held that Curtis sufficiently alleged a tortious-interference claim. He alleged a contractual and business relationship with CUNY involving his appointment as a professor, tenure status, teaching privileges, and research funding. He further alleged that the plaintiffs’ fabricated accusations caused CUNY to suspend him without notice or an opportunity to be heard and to begin termination proceedings, resulting in economic and professional losses.

The court rejected the argument that this claim duplicated the defamation claims. It explained that the defamation claims were based primarily on the New York Post interviews and social-media posts, while the tortious-interference claim was based primarily on statements allegedly made to CUNY and its investigators.

Disposition

The court granted the plaintiffs’ motion to dismiss in part, but only to the extent that liability could not be based on Cojocaru’s alleged text messages to her former fiancé or Haber’s statements that her experience made her suicidal and “killed her spiritually.” The court denied the motion in all other respects and directed the Clerk to close the motion.