Scheinberg

MEMORANDUM **

Sindi Scheinberg appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment to her former employer, Adidas America, Inc. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

The district court properly granted summary judgment on Scheinberg’s defamation claim. 1 Scheinberg did not meet her burden of showing that Adidas waived the privilege that applies to its employee’s statement that Scheinberg engaged in “clear expense report falsification.” 2 Adidas’ investigation produced two reasonable grounds to believe in the truth of the statement: (1) the pattern of questionable expense reports submitted by Scheinberg and (2) the warnings given to Scheinberg about her expense reports. 3 Scheinberg did not show that an improper purpose motivated the statement. 4 Although her briefing is replete with allegations of discriminatory animus on the part of her supervisor, Scheinberg introduced nothing to suggest that the alleged defamer shared that animus or was in any way motivated to further it. To the contrary, she conceded that she had no knowledge of discrimination on the part of the alleged defamer and that he had intervened on her behalf previously. Thus, this…