Motion for Summary Judgment for Defamation Case in Palm Beach County 

West Palm Beach Partner Olga Butkevich recently prevailed on a motion for summary judgment (MSJs) in Palm Beach County.

This was a defamation case where the Plaintiff sued our client, a gym after an incident that occurred in November 2022. The Plaintiff walked into the gym, and when he scanned his phone app to check in, there was some issue with his profile coming up. The front desk employee asked him for his name to properly check him in, but he refused to give it and engaged in an argument with the front desk employee. She told him he’d have to leave or she’d call the cops, given that he was arguing with her and refused to give his name. 

Plaintiff finally gave his name to the front desk employee and she called the police before he entered the locker room. While in the locker room, another female gym employee entered to the locker room asking him to leave because her understanding was that he was trespassing, as the police had been called. Plaintiff refused to leave the premises and instead went to the hot tub before he was escorted out of the building by police a few minutes later. He sued for intentional infliction of emotional distress, battery and defamation. 

On the defamation claim, he alleged that the front desk employee told police that he was dangerous, threatening to touch her, something was wrong with his membership and told others that he was trespassing.  With respect to the employee that confronted him inside the locker room, he claims that she said he was not a member, was going to be arrested and was being rude and disrespectful. 

At the MSJ hearing solely on defamation, we argued that such statements were either pure opinion, qualified privilege or substantial truth coupled with good faith. We argued that the Plaintiff could not establish a claim for defamation against the two gym employees. By the time of the hearing, Plaintiff’s counsel was no longer representing Plaintiff and he was pro se, however the Judge took into account the former counsel’s filed response to our MSJ. The Court granted the MSJ finding that there were no defamatory statements made and/or exception to the defamatory statement.