From Edokobi v. Smith, decided yesterday by the Appellate Court of Maryland (Judges Kathryn Grill Graeff, Kevin Arthur, and James Eyler):
In the light most favorable to Edokobi, the complaint alleged, generally, three claims: first, during an argument in front of two of Edokobi's employees about payment for work Smith had performed, Smith called Edokobi "a piece of garbage." Second, after Edokobi's employees left, Smith cast "evil curses" upon Edokobi's life and business. And third, in private text messages between the parties, Smith called Edokobi "stupid," "evil," and "foolish," and threatened to remove Edokobi's industrial equipment from his warehouse.
Edokobi's second and third claims cannot satisfy the [publication] element of defamation. Even if the alleged statements were defamatory, they were not made to, or in front of, a third person….
Although [the first] statement was made in front of third persons, as a matter of law, it was not defamatory. "A defamatory statement is one [that] tends to expose a person to public scorn, hatred, contempt, or ridicule, thereby discouraging others in the community from having a good opinion of, or from associating or dealing with, that person." "The test is whether the words, taken in their common and ordinary meaning, in the sense in which they are generally used, are capable of defamatory construction."
