New York Court Increases Protections for Victims of Sexual Assault Forced to Defend Bogus Defamation Charges

A New York appellate court recently reversed a lower court decision that risked encouraging perpetrators of sexual assault who seek to weaponize defamation law to silence their victims. The First Department’s decision signals a long overdue step forward toward increased protections for victims of sexual assault.

The case, Sagaille v. Carrega, held that a sexual assault victim may not be sued for defamation solely because she reported the assault to the police. Many states already recognize this obvious truth: that victims who report crimes to the police can never be held liable for defamation as a matter of law. In those states, their reports are considered “absolutely” privileged.  

However, in New York, victims are only entitled to a “qualified” privilege when they report crimes to the police, and the privilege is “qualified” precisely because the person claiming defamation may overcome it by demonstrating that the person who reported the crime acted with “actual malice”—that is, that the reporter acted out of personal spite and intentionally or recklessly disregarded the falsity of her statement.  

In Sagaille, Christine Carrega reported to the police that Chrismy Sagaille assaulted her. Mr. Sagaille then sued Ms. Carrega for defamation. The trial court held that when a victim makes a report of sexual assault to the police, that report is presumptively malicious by its very nature. Thus, the court held that Ms. Carrega’s report was not privileged—and could be sued for defamation. The decision was followed by protracted litigation that ultimately resulted in a mistrial.

Over one year later, the First Department reversed the trial court’s ruling, holding that Ms. Carrega’s report was in fact privileged and could not be the basis for defamation liability. In uncharacteristically colorful language, the appellate court wrote that “the lower court’s ruling rings of the outdated assumptions that have plagued sexual assault victims over time—namely, that women are likely to lie about sexual assaults and that such complaints are inherently vituperative.” Writing for a unanimous panel, Judge Sallie Manzanet-Daniels observed that holding complaints of sexual assault to be presumptively malicious would effectively dissuade victims from coming forward, rightly deeming that an “unacceptable result.”

The trial court’s rule, the First Department held, “has the effect of emboldening sexual assaulters who seek to weaponize the legal system in order to silence their victims.”

You can read the full decision here.

Sagaille follows a number of decisions by New York courts that have increasingly signalled greater protections for sexual assault victims against bogus claims of defamation—and, simultaneously, less protection for perpetrators. One such line of cases concerns the question of whether an alleged perpetrator’s denial of his accuser’s allegation may itself expose him to liability for defamation. The critical question in these cases has been whether or not the alleged perpetrator’s claim that his accuser lied constitutes a statement of actionable fact or a statement of nonactionable opinion. (E. Jean Carroll is litigating this right now, alleging that Donald Trump’s denial of her allegation of sexual assault was itself defamatory.) (You can read more about these cases, including the recent case of Zervos v. Trump, here.)

For more on New York’s increasing protections against frivolous defamation lawsuits intended to silence victims, check out KLLF’s article on New York’s new Anti-SLAPP law here.