It Happened At The World Bank

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals applied absolute immunity under the judicial proceedings privilege to affirm the dismissal of a defamation action.

The facts

Appellant Shinok Park worked under appellee Milan Brahmbhatt at the World Bank (the Bank). Ms. Park reported Mr. Brahmbhatt to the Bank’s Office of Ethics and Business Conduct (the EBC), alleging that he sexually assaulted and harassed her. The EBC investigated her allegations and, when doing so, afforded Mr. Brahmbhatt multiple opportunities to respond. Mr. Brahmbhatt retained appellee Peter Hansen as counsel during the Bank’s investigation. Through counsel, Mr. Brahmbhatt submitted two memoranda to the EBC, in which he claimed he had a consensual sexual relationship with Ms. Park and accused her of blackmailing and extorting him for employment opportunities at the Bank. According to Ms. Park, the memoranda also implied that she was a prostitute. The EBC sent a report to the Bank’s Vice President of Human Resources, attaching the two memoranda. In the report, the EBC recommended that the Vice President sanction Mr. Brahmbhatt for violating Bank rules by failing to resolve a de facto conflict of interest, but not to sanction him for sexual assault or harassment. The Vice President adopted the EBC’s  recommendation. Mr. Brahmbhatt appealed his sanction to the World Bank Administrative Tribunal (the WBAT), which affirmed the Vice President’s decision.

Ms. Park later was terminated from her employment at the Bank. She sued Mr. Brahmbhatt and Mr. Hansen in Superior Court for defamation, claiming the two memoranda they submitted to the EBC defamed her and resulted in her termination.

The memoranda were uncovered through discovery in a parallel proceeding.

The privilege on these facts

we have applied the judicial-proceedings privilege to statements made preliminary to judicial proceedings so long as “an attorney [made the statements] while performing his function as such,” there is “a reasonable nexus between the publication in question and the litigation under consideration,” and the statements had a genuine “relationship to potential litigation” and were not made as a “mere afterthought or [with a] sham rationale.” These requirements have been met in instances where an attorney solicited shareholders of a corporation to participate in a class action lawsuit against the corporation; an attorney questioned an adversary’s competency in the English language while waiting in a hearing room of the Rental Accommodations Office prior to commencement of a proceeding;  and an attorney responded to a threat of a lawsuit against the attorney’s client. 

In this case, Mr. Hansen submitted the memoranda to the EBC on behalf of Mr. Brahmbhatt as preliminary submissions to the WBAT. First, Mr. Hansen submitted the memoranda is his capacity as an attorney. Both memoranda bore his law firm’s letterhead in the top center, “LAW OFFICES OF PETER C. HANSEN, LLC,” and specified that he was “[c]ounsel to Mr. Brahmbhatt.” Second, the memoranda had a “reasonable nexus” to future WBAT proceedings. Both memoranda contested facts and cited WBAT case law to argue that Ms. Park’s allegations did not meet the requisite standard of proof because other evidence indicated she was lying, and that the EBC’s findings of  fact and conclusions of “law” in its draft report were erroneous based on WBAT precedent. Third, Mr. Hansen’s submissions indicate that he intended, in part, to establish a record for future WBAT proceedings; those proceedings, in other words, were not a mere afterthought. It was crucial that Mr. Hansen establish a record early on, as the WBAT historically has not heard oral arguments or held evidentiary hearings.

The statements

 The allegedly defamatory statements in this case were relevant to future WBAT proceedings. Ms. Park claimed Mr. Brahmbhatt sexually harassed and assaulted her, and Mr. Brahmbhatt defended himself on factual grounds, specifically, that he was the victim, not Ms. Park, something that if true would certainly have aided Mr. Brahmbhatt’s defense. The question is not whether Mr.  Hansen executed a sound or sensible argument, but whether a reasonable person might construe the statements he made as relevant.

Other safeguards exist

And although the specific requirements of the privilege have been met here, “the consequent immunity from a defamation suit does not mean that the attorney may not be sanctioned for misconduct."  An overly “bumptious and unrestrained” attorney who makes defamatory statements without regard for their truth or relevance, we predict, will render service counterproductive to his client’s interests and may be liable for malpractice in a given case. That attorney, too, may be subject to professional discipline.

It is worth noting that the Bank seeks to account for the interests of the complainant—here, Ms. Park—by imposing a duty on the EBC, witnesses, and staff members to keep confidential all information related to an investigation of a complaint. The WBAT, as well, sought to protect Ms. Park’s identity by referring to her as “Ms. R.” Although Ms. Park claims that the statements in the memoranda were somehow leaked and led to her termination, she has offered us no evidence that leaks are a general problem at the Bank. And we presume that the Bank does its best to honor its rules regarding confidentiality, a presumption Ms. Park has not rebutted.

Associate Judge Glickman authored the opinion joined by Associate Judges Fisher and Thompson. (Mike Frisch)