Green

BACKGROUND

Selena Green (Selena) and Whitcomb are former business partners who jointly owned a company called “Whitcomb and Cate, Inc.”1 The parties all state in their appellate briefing this was an estate sale business. In May 2020, Selena and Whitcomb entered into a settlement agreement by which Whitcomb resigned from the company and transferred his entire

Respondents Selena Green and David Green are married. We refer

to them by their first names to distinguish them.

1 interest in the business to Selena (then known as Selana Mordue and also referred to as Selena Cate). Selena and her husband David subsequently filed a complaint against Whitcomb and an entity called Kind Estate Sales, LLC alleging a single cause of action for slander per se.2 As described by the trial court in its ruling: “[t]hey allege Whitcomb said the following: “1. On December 1, 2020, Whitcomb posted and published defamatory statements on his Facebook page claiming that Plaintiffs were thieves and stole his company and property from him, as well as the property of his clients. “2. On December 10, 2021, Whitcomb stated to an individual named Sara McNamee and other individuals not known to Plaintiffs…