Price v. Hale Global

── Price v. Hale Global ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Date: April 14, 2026 Category: General 25-267-cv Price v. Hale Global UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT SUMMARY ORDER RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 14th day of April, two thousand twenty-six. Present: WILLIAM J. NARDINI, SARAH A. L. MERRIAM, Circuit Judges, M. MILLER BAKER, Judge. * _____________________________________ NEAL EVAN PRICE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. 25-267-cv HALE GLOBAL, PATCH, Defendants-Appellees. _____________________________________ For Plaintiff-Appellant: Neal Evan Price, pro se, Olympia Fields, IL. For Defendants-Appellees: Dominique Scalia, DBS Law, Seattle, WA; Malcolm Seymour, Foster Garvey PC, New York, NY. * Judge M. Miller Baker, of the United States Court of International Trade, sitting by designation. 1  Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Jesse M. Furman, District Judge). UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. Price, proceeding pro se, appeals from the district court’s judgment dismissing his defamation action against Hale Global and Patch, an online media company. Price’s action arises from an article about Price published on Patch.com in 2013. Defendants moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) to dismiss Price’s operative complaint as barred by the statute of limitations. The district court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss, agreeing that, under the law of any relevant state, Price’s defamation claim is time barred. Price v. Hale Global, 24-CV-2826 (JMF), 2024 WL 5009787 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 6, 2024). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the case. “We review de novo a district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss, accepting as true all factual allegations in the complaint and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiffs.” Muto v. CBS Corp., 668 F.3d 53, 56 (2d Cir. 2012). 1 “The application of a statute of limitations presents a legal issue and is also reviewed de novo.” Horror Inc. v. Miller, 15 F.4th 232, 241 (2d Cir. 2021). “Dismissal under [Rule] 12(b)(6) is appropriate when a defendant raises a statutory bar, such as lack of timeliness, as an affirmative defense and it is clear from the face of the complaint, and matters of which the court may take judicial notice, that the plaintiff’s claims are barred as a matter of law.” Sewell v. Bernardin, 795 F.3d 337, 339 (2d Cir. 2015). “[W]e 1 Unless otherwise indicated, when quoting cases, all internal quotation marks, alteration marks, emphases, footnotes, and citations are omitted. 2 liberally construe pleadings and briefs submitted by pro se litigants, reading such submissions t