Van-Go Transport Co., Inc. v. New York City Board of Education

The Board (defendant) rejected bus-transportation proposals from companies owned by the Dachs family (plaintiffs), citing unsubstantiated allegations of offering gratuities to government officials; because the city's Vendex bidding system required bidders to disclose in a questionnaire whether they'd previously been investigated, the companies were later required to disclose, in a subsequent bid, that their earlier proposal had been rejected based on these unsubstantiated gratuity allegations, placing that information into their permanent Vendex data files. The companies and Dachs sued the Board for defamation, and the Board moved for summary judgment, arguing the plaintiffs themselves had placed the defamatory statements into the Vendex system.