Aboutaam v Dow Jones & Co. (2020 NY Slip Op 01271) Aboutaam v Dow Jones & Co. 2020 NY Slip Op 01271 Decided on February 20, 2020 Appellate Division, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports. Decided on February 20, 2020 Renwick, J.P., Mazzarelli, Gesmer, Kern, JJ. 11097 156399/17 [*1] Hicham Aboutaam, Plaintiff-Appellant, vDow Jones & Company, Defendant-Respondent. Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP, New York (Richard D. Emery and David A. Lebowitz of counsel), for appellant. Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, New York (Robert P. LoBue of counsel), for respondent. Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Robert D. Kalish, J.), entered March 26, 2019, which, insofar as appealed from as limited by the briefs, granted defendant's motion to dismiss the claim for defamation by implication, unanimously affirmed, without costs. Plaintiff, a prominent antiquities dealer, alleges that he was defamed by implication in an article in the Wall Street Journal, which is published by defendant )see Armstrong v Simon & Schuster, 85 NY2d 373, 380—381 [1995]; Martin v Hearst Corp., 777 F3d 546, 552 [2d Cir 2015], cert denied __ US __, 136 S Ct 40 [2015]). The title of the article is "Prominent Art Family Entangled in ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] Antiquities-Looting Investigations." The subheading states, "Long-time dealers Ali and Hicham Aboutaam are under scrutiny, as authorities in multiple countries look into how Islamic State finances itself by trafficking in ancient objects." Plaintiff alleges that, through the juxtaposition of text and photographs of him with unrelated information about ISIS and its art-looting activities, the article implies that he was helping to finance ISIS. Defendant moved to dismiss. In opposition, plaintiff failed to show that the language of the article as a whole can reasonably be read to impart a defamatory inference and to affirmatively suggest that the author intended or endorsed that inference (see Stepanov v Dow Jones & Co., Inc., 120 AD3d 28, 37-38 [1st Dept 2014]). Contrary to plaintiff's contention, the motion court properly considered each challenged statement or feature of the article in the context of the article as a whole, after assessing each individually (see Immuno AG. v Moor-Jankowski, 77 NY2d 235, 250 [1991], cert denied 500 US 954 [1991]). The article's discussion of investigations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and by officials in Belgium, Switzerland and France is privileged under Civil Rights Law § 74 as a publication of "a fair and true report of . . . official proceeding[s]" (id.), i.e., its substance is "substantially accurate" (Sprecher v Dow Jones & Co., 88 AD2d 550, 552 [1st Dept 1982], affd 58 NY2d 862 [1983]; see Law Firm of Daniel P. Foster, P.C. v Turner Broadcasting Sys., Inc., 844 F2d 955, 960 [2d Cir 1988], cert denied 488 US 994 [1988]). Plaintiff raised arguments to the contrary for the first time in reply, and we ...
Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals