Hernandez-Colon v. Claver-Obinna, 3:23-cv-00356

Dr. Agdel Hernandez-Colon served as the director of the Psychiatry Residency Program at Nuvance Health, supervising medical residents including Defendants Karl Claver-Obinna and Sabih Rahman.
Residents raised complaints about Dr. Hernandez-Colon to program leadership and HR, which included allegations of abusive and discriminatory conduct.
Subsequent HR investigations led to meetings with residents and Dr. Hernandez-Colon, followed by his termination for alleged misconduct detailed in the HR findings and a PowerPoint presentation.
Dr. Hernandez-Colon sued Claver-Obinna and Rahman for defamation per se, alleging their statements were false and resulted in his professional harm and termination.
Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing lack of admissible evidence, opinion/truth defenses, and privilege; Plaintiff opposed, focusing on wrongful attribution and professional harm.
The court granted summary judgment to both defendants, finding no triable defamation per se claim due to inadmissible evidence, non-actionable opinion, truth, and qualified privilege.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of evidence of statements	Hearsay statements are attributable to defendants.	Plaintiff lacks admissible evidence of defendants’ communications.	No admissible evidence against Rahman; admissible only for Claver-Obinna’s own statements.
Defamatory nature of statements	Statements were factual accusations damaging his profession.	Statements were opinions, not facts capable of defamation.	Only statement about “yelling” potentially actionable as fact, rest are opinions.
Truth of the statements	Statements were false and led to termination.	Statements (e.g., about yelling) are true; other conduct admitted.	Truth is a defense for actionable "yelling" statement, supported by plaintiff’s own admission.
Qualified privilege for workplace speech	Privilege doesn’t apply to subordinates or where malice exists.	Intracorporate privilege applies; no malice shown.	Qualified privilege applies; no evidence of actionable malice.

Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317 (summary judgment standard: burden on movant to show lack of material fact)
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242 (summary judgment: genuine dispute must be material)
Cweklinsky v. Mobil Chem. Co., 837 A.2d 759 (defamation defined; elements under Connecticut law)
Gambardella v. Apple Health Care, Inc., 969 A.2d 736 (Connecticut defamation elements; privilege)
NetScout Sys., Inc. v. Gartner, Inc., 223 A.3d 37 (fact vs. opinion; actionable defamation requires objective fact)
Torosyan v. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 662 A.2d 89 (qualified privilege for intracorporate communication in Connecticut)