Jacob v. Lorenz

Background

Ariadna Jacob and Influences, Inc. brought a defamation action against Taylor Lorenz and The New York Times Company. They alleged that a New York Times article written by Lorenz contained defamatory statements about Jacob.

In an earlier order on the defendants’ motion to dismiss the second amended complaint, the Court granted the motion in part and denied it in part. Most of the challenged statements did not support a claim under the pleading standard. The Court allowed one claim—concerning “Statement 12”—to proceed. Statement 12 involved the article’s treatment of Jacob’s alleged distribution of nude photographs of Devion Young.

Before the article was published, Lorenz’s messages to Jacob’s team referred to allegations that Jacob had distributed Young’s photographs privately to others. Lorenz also stated that no one was alleging that Jacob had publicly leaked the photographs. The published article quoted Young as saying that Jacob “leaked my nudes and sent them to business partners, people in my house and potential investors.” It then quoted Jacob’s lawyer as saying that Jacob had informed an internal consultant about the photographs but had not publicly leaked them.

The plaintiffs alleged that the article falsely suggested Jacob leaked the photographs to industry people for leverage. They acknowledged that Jacob informed an Influences staff member about the photographs and alerted Young’s house manager, but alleged that she never publicly disseminated or “leaked” them.

Motion for reconsideration

The defendants moved for reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) and Local Rule 6.3. A motion for reconsideration asks a court to revisit an earlier ruling. The standard is strict: the moving party generally must identify controlling authority or information the court overlooked, a change in controlling law, new evidence, clear error, or a need to prevent serious injustice. The motion is not a vehicle for rearguing issues already addressed.

The defendants argued that the Court had misunderstood the record by failing to distinguish between “publicly leaked” and “leaked.” They contended that both sides understood “leak” to mean an unauthorized disclosure, while “publicly leak” referred to broader disclosure to the public. They also argued that Statement 12 focused only on Jacob’s admitted private disclosure of the photographs.

Court’s reasoning

The Court rejected the proposed distinction at this stage. It explained that Lorenz’s prepublication communications repeatedly referred to Jacob’s “private” distribution of the photographs and separately stated that no one alleged Jacob had “publicly leaked” them. The messages did not show that Lorenz understood “leaked” and “publicly leaked” to have the different meanings asserted by the defendants.

The Court also found that the published statement suggested two separate things: that Jacob leaked the photographs and that she privately sent them to business partners and others. That wording was inconsistent with Lorenz’s prepublication description of the allegations. The Court stated that the defendants could later present evidence showing that Lorenz understood the two phrases differently, but the record at this stage did not support changing the earlier ruling. The Court also declined to find that uses of “leak” in unrelated judicial decisions established Lorenz’s understanding of the term.

Disposition

The defendants’ motion for reconsideration was DENIED. The parties’ requests for oral argument were DENIED as moot. The surviving defamation claim concerning Statement 12 was not dismissed by this order. The Court directed the parties to attend a telephonic status conference on November 1, 2023, and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the listed motions.