Stevens v. Khalily
| Docket Number | AC 45400 |
| Decision Date | 25 July 2023 |
| Parties | ERIC STEVENS v. EDWARD KHALILY ET AL. |
| Court | Connecticut Court of Appeals |
Argued May 9, 2023
Procedural History
Action to recover damages for, inter alia, defamation, and for other relief, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Hartford, where the court, Shapiro, J. granted the motion to dismiss filed by the named defendant et al. and rendered judgment thereon; thereafter, the court Sheridan, J., granted the motion to strike filed by the defendant Shahram Rabbani et al., and the plaintiff appealed to this court; subsequently, the court, Cobb J., granted the plaintiffs motion for judgment and rendered judgment for the defendant Shahram Rabbani et al from which the plaintiff filed an amended appeal. Affirmed.
Christopher T. DeMatteo, with whom, on the brief, was Norman A. Pattis, for the appellant (plaintiff).
Cristin E. Sheehan, for the appellees (defendant Shahram Rabbani et al).
Alvord, Prescott and Clark, Js.
The plaintiff, Eric Stevens, appeals from the judgment of the trial court rendered in favor of the defendants Shahram Rabbani (Shahram) and Diana Rab-bani (Diana),[1] following the court's granting of the defendants' motion to strike all counts of the complaint brought against them. On appeal, the plaintiff claims that the court improperly struck counts nine and twelve, which alleged defamation against Shahram and Diana respectively, for failure to plead defamation with the requisite specificity.[2]The plaintiff argues that counts nine and twelve of the operative complaint[3] "adequately identify the alleged defamatory statements, who made them and to whom they were made, which is what is required of defamation pleadings under Connecticut law and practice." We conclude that the court properly granted the motion to strike counts nine and twelve because the plaintiff has failed to plead reputational harm, an element required to establish a prima facie case of defamation at common law. Because the plaintiff has failed to plead all four elements of defamation, we need not reach the plaintiffs claim that the court improperly granted the motion to strike on the grounds that he failed to plead the elements of defamation with the requisite specificity. We affirm the judgment of the court.
The following facts, as alleged in the operative complaint, and procedural history are relevant to the plaintiffs claim on appeal. The plaintiff previously was married to Tiffany Khalily, with whom he had a child. The defendants are Tiffany Khalily's mother and stepfather. On May 21, 2009, the plaintiff initiated a marital dissolution action against Tiffany Khalily. The court rendered a judgment of dissolution of marriage on September 6,2011, that incorporated the parties' marital separation agreement Pursuant to the judgment, Tiffany Khalily was granted full legal and physical custody of their daughter, and the plaintiff was granted visitation. Bitter postdissolution proceedings followed regarding custody of and visitation with their child. While the parties were involved in this contentious dispute, the defendants made allegedly defamatory statements to agents of the Department of Children and Families (department) regarding the plaintiff.[4]
The plaintiff commenced this action on October 16, 2017. On March 1, 2019, the plaintiff filed the operative revised complaint. The counts relevant to this appeal are nine and twelve, which, as previously noted, allege defamation by the defendants. In particular, the plaintiff alleged in count nine that Shahram made statements to the department about the plaintiff, including that the plaintiff was in the habit of sleeping with transvestite prostitutes.
In count twelve, the plaintiff alleged that Diana told the department that the plaintiff had engaged in physical violence,[5] had no interest in seeing or spending time with his daughter, was only interested in seeing his child to the extent that she was the beneficiary of a $50 million trust, lived a dangerous lifestyle, and was so desperate for money that he would prostitute his daughter.
In response to the revised complaint, the defendants, pursuant to Practice Book § 10-39, filed a motion to strike all counts brought against them.[6] In support of their motion to strike, the defendants argued in relevant part that the "plaintiffs claims of defamation within counts nine and twelve fail to allege sufficient facts to comply with the heightened pleading requirements for such claims." The defendants also argued that the intentional infliction of emotional distress claims against them, counts seven and ten, failed to state a claim because the plaintiff did not allege that they engaged in any outrageous or extreme conduct. The defendants argued that the prima facie tort claims against them, counts eight and eleven, should also be stricken because "the allegations supporting the claims are already addressed by other causes of action."
The plaintiff filed an objection to the motion to strike. The plaintiff argued that he should be afforded and is entitled to every reasonable inference drawn from the pleadings at that stage and that those inferences support the claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation and prima facie tort. The plaintiff argued that, "[a]t a minimum, there is evidence to support the claims that the . . . defendants conspired to [and/or] directly acted to deprive the plaintiff of substantial real estate holdings and millions of dollars and conspired to and directly acted to defame the plaintiff and to deprive him of a relationship with his daughter, notwithstanding court orders allowing the plaintiff regular visitation."
In response to the plaintiffs objection, the defendants filed a reply, arguing that the (Citations omitted; emphasis added.)
On August 21, 2019, the trial court, Sheridan, J., issued a memorandum of decision granting the motion to strike as to counts seven, eight, ten and eleven but denying the motion to strike as to counts nine and twelve, the defamation counts. With respect to counts nine and twelve, the court analyzed the sufficiency of the allegations contained in the original complaint, not the operative revised complaint.
On August 28, 2019, the defendants filed a motion for reargument and reconsideration. The defendants argued that the court's decision in regard to counts nine and twelve should be reconsidered because controlling appellate authority requires that defamation must be pleaded with specificity. As a result, the defendants argued, "the instant decision is inconsistent with controlling precedent and should be reconsidered." Additionally, the defendants argued that the court improperly analyzed the sufficiency of the original complaint dated October 6, 2017, rather than the sufficiency of the revised complaint dated March 1, 2019. The court denied the defendants' motion without comment on November 19, 2019.
The defendants then filed a motion for clarification and/ or articulation, again raising that the court's August 21, 2019 ruling on the motion to strike had improperly analyzed the sufficiency of the original complaint, rather than the operative complaint. In response to the defendants' motion, the court issued a decision on March 14, 2022, in which it reconsidered its August 21, 2019 ruling on the motion to strike with respect to counts nine and twelve. After setting forth the relevant allegations from the operative complaint, the court concluded in relevant part that, "even when construed broadly and realistically, the allegations in count[s] nine and twelve fail[ed] to sufficiently allege a claim for defamation with the requisite specificity as described in the relevant case law."[7] Accordingly, the court effectively set aside its prior ruling and struck counts nine and twelve.
On March 24, 2022, the plaintiff filed a motion for judgment pursuant to Practice Book § 10-44,[8] stating that he declines to replead and asking the court to enter judgment on all counts brought against the defendants. On March 31, 2022, before the trial court acted on the plaintiffs motion for judgment, the plaintiff filed an appeal with this court challenging the court's March 14,2022 order striking counts nine and twelve. The trial court subsequently granted the plaintiffs motion for judgment and ordered that "judgment is entered in favor of the defendants] on counts nine and twelve of the [operative] complaint."
This court, sua sponte, issued the following order on June 22, 2022:
Thereafter the plaintiff filed a motion for judgment...
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