Hammick

The plaintiff sought to recover damages for, inter alia, defamation and tortious interference, in connection with a statement made by the defen- dant W to the plaintiff's employer, Q. The plaintiff, formerly a sergeant with a town police department, retired and took a position as a public safety officer with Q. Prior to the plaintiff's retirement, he was accused of insubordination and neglect of duty. The chief of the police depart- ment, the defendant H, ordered W to conduct an internal affairs investiga- tion into the accusations but the plaintiff retired before the investigation had been completed and a decision could be made whether to discipline him. Q decided to arm certain of its public safety officers, including former police officers, who were able to provide a letter of good standing to Q. K, an investigator for Q, asked W whether the plaintiff would ever be able to receive a letter of good standing from the department, to which W responded ''no.'' The plaintiff's employment was therefore terminated by Q. The trial court denied W's motion for summary judg- ment but thereafter granted W's motion to reargue and, after reconsid- ering its ruling, granted W's motion for summary judgment and the plaintiff appealed to this court, claiming that the trial court improperly granted the motion to reargue and the motion for summary judgment. Held: 1. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting W's motion to reargue; W asserted that the court made several errors, including that it overlooked certain evidence or misapprehended facts in denying his motion for summary judgment and, thus, the court was well within its discretion to grant the motion to reargue and reevaluate its decision. 2. The trial court properly granted summary judgment in favor of the defen- dants on the plaintiff's claims of defamation and tortious interference: there was no genuine issue of material fact that W's statement to K was substantially true, as he submitted evidence, namely, th