SANDRA J. FEUERSTEIN, District Judge.
Plaintiff Dianne Sheffield ("plaintiff') brings this action against defendants the Roslyn Union Free School District (the "District") and the Roslyn Union Free School District Board of Education (the "Board") (collectively, "defendants"), alleging violations of her constitutional right to due process pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ("Section 1983") and various state law claims.
Rule 72 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permits a magistrate judge to conduct proceedings of dispositive pretrial matters without the consent of the parties. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b). Any portion of a report and recommendation on dispositive matters to which a timely objection has been made is reviewed de novo. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b). However, "when a party makes only conclusory or general objections, or simply reiterates the original arguments, the Court will review the report strictly for clear error." Frankel v. City of NY, Nos. 06-cv-5450, 07-cv-3436, 2009 WL 465645, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 25, 2009). The Court is not required to review the factual findings or legal conclusions of the magistrate judge as to which no proper objections are made. See Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 150, 106 S.Ct. 466, 88 L.Ed.2d 435 (1985). To accept the report and recommendation of a magistrate judge on a dispositive matter to which no timely objection has been made, the district judge need only be satisfied that there is no clear error on the face of the record. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b); Johnson v. Goard, 487 F.Supp.2d 377, 379 (S.D.N.Y. 2007), aff'd, 305 F. App'x 815 (2d Cir. Jan. 9, 2009); Baptichon v. Nev. State Bank, 304 F.Supp.2d 451,453 (E.D.N.Y. 2004), aff'd, 125 F. App'x 374 (2d Cir. Apr. 13, 2005). Whether or not proper objections have been filed, the district judge may, after review, accept, reject, or modify any of the magistrate judge's findings or recommendations. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b).
Plaintiff objects to: (I) the standard applied by Magistrate Judge Tomlinson in reviewing defendants' motion to dismiss; (2) Magistrate Judge Tomlinson's ruling that plaintiff has not stated viable claims for libel, libel per se and defamation; and (3) Magistrate Judge Tomlinson's ruling that plaintiff has not stated a viable claim for a stigma-plus due process violation under Section 1983. See generally Obj. Accordingly, the Court is required to conduct a de novo review of those portions of the Report. Upon de novo review of the Report and consideration of the plaintiffs objections and the defendants' responses thereto, the Court overrules the objections and accepts the Report in its entirety.
Plaintiff contends that "the Report and Recommendation improperly resolved issues of fact in favor of Defendants and failed to accept all well-pleaded allegations in the complaint as true [and] drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiffs favor." Obj., at I (internal citations omitted). Plaintiff's one specific example is that the Report, in concluding that the alleged defamatory remarks were protected by absolute immunity, "fails to give credence to Plaintiff's allegations regarding the malicious nature of such remarks, but rather, assumes they were issued as part of the Board discharge of their quasi-judicial duties, within the scope of their authority." Obj., at 4.
Upon a de novo review, this Court is satisfied that Magistrate Judge Tomlinson adhered to the correct standard in reviewing the parties' submissions and issuing the Report.
Plaintiff objects to the Report's dismissal of the libel, libel per se and defamation claims and to the Report "mistakenly giving credence to Defendants' factual assertions and concluding that the defamatory remarks were protected by absolute immunity and therefore, not actionable." Obj., at 3. For the reasons explained herein, the Court holds that that plaintiffs libel, libel per se and defamation claims should be dismissed because defendants are entitled to absolute immunity.
New York law considers a statement by an executive official to be absolutely privileged when it is made in the exercise of his executive function and has some relation to the executive proceeding in which the official is acting. Sheridan v. Crisona, 14 N.Y.2d 108, 249 N.Y.S.2d 161, 198 N.E.2d 359 (1964). There is a two prong test to determine the applicability of absolute immunity to an alleged defamatory statement: the first prong focuses on the personal position or status of the speaker.
Plaintiffs objection focuses upon the second prong of this test, alleging that the Report "assumes [the statements] were "issued as part of the Board discharge of their quasi-judicial duties, within the scope of their authority" (Obj., at 4) and "fails to give credence to Plaintiffs allegations regarding the malicious nature of such remarks." Id.
Examining the text of the Board Statement, as well as the allegations in the complaint, the Court finds the Report's conclusion that defendants were acting with the scope of their official capacity when they published the Board Statement to be correct. The subject matter of the Board Statement — a public explanation of the termination of the District's Claims Auditor in an attempt to "be fully transparent" (Board Statement, at 1), "restore the trust that was badly damaged through financial scandal" (id.) and reassure the community that there were no "financial irregularities with regard to the School District finances" (id.) — is within the competence and purview of the Board of Education and the District and is not totally unwarranted given the District's recent history of "improprieties and criminal acts." Id. The forum in which the Board Statement was made— on the District's own website (Complaint ¶ 77; see also Board Statement at 1)— further supports the conclusion that defendants were acting within the scope of their official capacity when they published the Board Statement. As noted supra in Section II.A., Magistrate Judge Tomlinson, in determining whether it was within the scope of defendants' authority to issue the Board Statement, did not "reject[s] Plaintiff's allegations that the remarks issued by the Board were done so maliciously" (Obj., at 4) or "simply adopt[s] the justification asserted by the Defendants" (id.) but rather looked to the text of the Board Statement itself to determine that defendants were protected by absolute immunity.
Plaintiff's objection that the Report "misapplies binding precedent as set by Supan v. Michelfeld, 97 A.D.2d 755,468 N.Y.S.2d 384 (2d Dep't 1983)" (Obj., at 3) is unavailing. In Supan, the court did not, as plaintiff states, expressly hold that "the publication of charges levied against [plaintiff] were clearly
Unlike Supan, there is no uncertainty in this case as to whom the Board Statement was made and the circumstances under which it was made; that information is clear from the text of the Board Statement itself. Public statements by boards of education made in similar circumstances as those present here have been found to be protected by absolute immunity. See Lombardo v. Stoke, 18 N.Y.2d 394,401-02,222 N.E.2d 721 (1966) (finding that defendant Board of Higher Education acted within the scope of its official powers and thus should be accorded absolute privilege where, "[c]onsidering the widespread newspaper coverage given to the charges of bias, the propriety, indeed the necessity, of a public statement by the board [could] hardly be doubted.").
The Court finds that defendants were acting within the scope of their official duties when they made the Board Statement. The Court hereby overrules plaintiff's objections and grants defendants' motion to dismiss Counts Two, Three and Six on the grounds of absolute immunity.
Plaintiff objects to the Report's finding that she has not stated a viable claim for a stigma-plus due process violation under Section 1983. To succeed on a stigma-plus claim, a plaintiff must demonstrate that her liberty was deprived without due process of law. See Segal v. City of New York, 459 F.3d 207, 213 (2d Cir. 2006). In the case of"an at-will government employee, the availability of an adequate, reasonably prompt, post-termination name-clearing hearing is sufficient to defeat a stigma-plus claim." Id at 214.
Plaintiff alleges that because of her own misinterpretation of the language in her employment contract,
Plaintiff offers no authority, and this Court has found none, to support her argument that her failure to avail herself of the available Article 78 proceeding based on her subjective belief that such a proceeding was unavailable to her alters the above analysis.
In her objection, plaintiff raises, for the first time, the argument that even if an Article 78 proceeding was available, "such a hearing would have been futile." Obj., at 8. Other than citing to case law for the general proposition that in some circumstances, a stigma plus claim may be maintained if a post-deprivation hearing would be futile, plaintiff does not explain, or even plead allegations that would allow the Court to infer why an Article 78 proceeding would have been insufficient to allow plaintiff to refute the charges against her and clear her narne.
For the foregoing reasons, plaintiff's objections are overruled and this Court adopts the Report in its entirety. Accordingly, defendants' motion to dismiss is granted and plaintiff's motion to amend is denied. The Clerk of the Court shall enter judgment accordingly and close this case.