Paul J. Meyers v. Carl J. Levinson, M.d

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 05-2036
PAUL J. MEYERS,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
CARL J. LEVINSON, M.D.,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Newport News. Jerome B. Friedman,
District Judge. (CA-02-9-JBF-JEB)
Argued: May 24, 2006 Decided: June 21, 2006
Before KING and SHEDD, Circuit Judges, and Joseph R. GOODWIN,
United States District Judge for the Southern District of West
Virginia, sitting by designation.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Nicholas Kadar, Cranbury, New Jersey, for Appellant. Robert Lee
Harris, Jr., LECLAIR RYAN, P.C., Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).

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PER CURIAM:
Dr. Paul Meyers filed this diversity action against Dr. Carl
Levinson alleging defamation. Specifically, Dr. Meyers contends
that Dr. Levinson is liable for republication of a peer review
report that Dr. Levinson authored for Dr. Meyers’ employer,
Riverside Regional Medical Center (“Riverside”). In a thorough
opinion, the district court granted Dr. Levinson’s motion for
summary judgment, concluding that the dissemination of the report
to Riverside’s Fair Hearings Board did not create a new cause of
action under the single publication rule and, therefore, was time-
barred under Virginia law. See Semida v. Rice, 863 F.2d 1156, 1161
(4th Cir. 1998) (noting that substantially contemporaneous
distributions of a document within the same organization to
individuals with a direct interest in the matter “should be
considered part of an aggregate communication for purposes of
applying the single publication rule”). The district court further
determined that the distribution of the report to Mary Immaculate
Hospital was not authorized by Dr. Levinson, nor was it the
“natural and probable result” of Dr. Levinson’s action. See Weaver
v. Beneficial Finance Co., 98 S.E.2d 687, 692 (Va. 1957) (stating
that an original defamer is liable for republications that are the
“natural and probable result” of the defamer’s actions). Dr.
Meyers appeals both of these determinations.

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Having reviewed, de novo, the parties’ briefs and the
applicable law, and having had the benefit of oral argument, we
affirm the grant of summary judgment on the reasoning of the
district court. See Meyers v. Levinson, No. 4:02-cv-00009 (E.D.
Va. July 26, 2005).
AFFIRMED

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