Opinion
8890 Index 154663/17
04-04-2019
Peter Paul BIRO, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. CONDÉ NAST, a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc., Defendant–Respondent.
Law Office of Richard A. Altman, New York (Richard A. Altman of counsel), for appellant. Ballard Spahr LLP, New York (David A. Schulz of counsel), for respondent.
Law Office of Richard A. Altman, New York (Richard A. Altman of counsel), for appellant.
Ballard Spahr LLP, New York (David A. Schulz of counsel), for respondent.
Sweeny, J.P., Manzanet–Daniels, Kern, Oing, Singh, JJ.
Contrary to plaintiff's contention, the email sent by defendant to New Yorker magazine subscribers in April 2017 containing a hyperlink to an article published in the magazine in July 2010 does not constitute republication of the article (see Martin v. Daily News L.P., 121 A.D.3d 90, 103–104, 990 N.Y.S.2d 473 [1st Dept. 2014], lv denied 24 N.Y.3d 908, 2014 WL 5394110 [2014] ). The article was unmodified and had been continuously archived on the same website since the printed version was first published. Moreover, it is not alleged that the 2017 email, which included the link to the article in controversy, contained any defamatory statements about plaintiff. A reference to an article that does not restate the defamatory material is not a republication of the material (see Klein v. Biben, 296 N.Y. 638, 69 N.E.2d 682 [1946] ). This action is therefore barred by the one-year statute of limitations for defamation claims ( CPLR 215[3] ), which generally accrues on the date of the first publication ( Gregoire v. Putnam's Sons, 298 N.Y. 119, 123, 81 N.E.2d 45 [1948] ; see also Firth v. State of New York, 98 N.Y.2d 365, 370, 747 N.Y.S.2d 69, 775 N.E.2d 463 [2002] ).
In light of the foregoing, we do not reach plaintiff's remaining contentions.