Bruce S. Rosen Part of Winning Legal Team in a Defamation Action Brought Against an Advocacy Group by a Maplewood Teacher

Bruce S. Rosen, partner at Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C., was recently mentioned in a New Jersey Law Journal article titled “A Teacher Is a Public Figure? Defamation, Actual Malice and Social Media.” The article discusses a New Jersey teacher's claim that former Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad defamed her in social media posts about an incident in class involving the alleged pulling down of a young student's hijab.  A New Jersey appeals court dismissed the libel suit against the Council on American-Islamic Relations Foundation Inc. (CAIR), a national Muslim advocacy group,  as well as the group’s New Jersey chapter, for reposting and adding commentary to Muhammad’s posts, but refused to dismiss a libel claim against Muhammed, allowing that case to proceed to discovery.

The teacher, Tamar Herman, filed a libel suit against Muhammed and the advocacy groups in 2022. The defendants moved to dismiss the case because Plaintiff had not properly pleaded actual malice (that the statements were made with knowing falsity), but Judge Daniel Lindemann of Essex County Superior Court denied their motions to dismiss. On Tuesday, October 15, an appeals court panel consisting of Thomas Sumners Jr., Ronald Susswein and Stanley Bergman reversed the ruling, dismissing the claims against CAIR, CAIR-NJ and Maksut. The appeals court said the law was clear that actual malice was not properly pleaded and dismissed the action against the advocacy groups with prejudice so it could not be filed again.

CAIR was represented by Robert Balin, Abigail B. Everdell and Leena Charlton of Davis Wright Tremaine and Bruce S. Rosen of Pashman Stein Walder Hayden. Jorkeell Echeverria and Michael Hemsley of Carlton Fields represented CAIR-NJ and its executive director.

To read the full New Jersey Law Journal article, click here.

The case also received coverage in Law360, which can be viewed here.

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