First, the backstory from the lower court decision, in Shuman v. New York Magazine:
Plaintiffs commenced the instant action alleging they were libeled in two separate articles published by defendants entitled The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge A Harvard Law Professor Who Teaches a Class on Judgment Wouldn't Seem Like an Obvious Mark, Would He? and The Harvard Professor Scam Gets Even Weirder Six Other Men Describe Their Encounters with the Same Mysterious Frenchwoman. At its most simplistic, the first article pertained to the complicated relationship between the plaintiffs and Harvard professor Bruce Hay ("professor Hay"), but also concerns allegations of rape, paternity extortion, and abuse of process relating to the Title IX process and other judicial proceedings. The second article was a follow up that tells the accounts of six men who reached out to the article's author to recount their allegedly similar encounters with the plaintiffs. Both articles were written by defendant Bolonik. While plaintiffs generally characterize the two articles as completely false and the result of poor investigative reporting, they specifically argue that plaintiffs were defamed through a paternity extortion scheme libel, a "house-napping" libel, a weaponized Title IX sexual harassment investigation at Harvard libel, and by describing their actions as belonging to a "punitive game."
Now, from yesterday's decision by the New York intermediate appellate court:
