• PelSovta01/4, rigUIL9 COMO. Malicious Prosecution and the Litigation Privilege by Tcd Babbitt The litigation privilege is an absolute privilege which protects attorneys and litigants because of wrongful acts taken in the course of and relating to litigation in Florida It was first recognized in Florida in 1907 in Myers v Hodges, 44 So. 357 (Fla. 1907). It was extended i Levin, Afiddlebrooks. Mabie, Thomas, Mayes & Mitchell, v. U.S. Fire rns. co., 639 So. 2d 606 (Fla. 1994) beyond defamatory statements of slander or libel. In Levin at 608 the Supreme Court held: We find that absolute immunity must be afforded to any act occurring during the course of a judicial proceeding, regardless of whether the act involves a defamatory statement or other rortious behavior such as the alleged misconduct at issue, so long as the act has some relation to the proceeding... Participants [must] be free to use their best judgment in prosecuting or defending a lawsuit without fear of having to defend their actions in a subsequent civil action for misconduct. The Florida Supreme Court extended the privilege in Echevarria, McCalla, Rayner, Barrett & &rippler v. Cole, 950 So. 2d 380 (Fla. 2007) when it declared at 384: The litigation privilege applies across the board to actions in Florida, both to common-law causes of action, those initiated pursuant to a statute or of some other origin. In Wolfe v Foreman, 128 So. 3d 67 (Fla. 3rd DCA 2013) the issue was whether the litigation privilege applied to the filing of a cause of action based on a claim of malicious prosecution. In essence the question was whether the filing of the allegedly malicious complaint was itself protected by the litigation privilege. Since the basis of malicious prosecution is the malicious filing of a lawsuit without probable cause, a holding that such a filing was absolutely privileged would bar all causes of action for malicious prosecution in Florida. In Wolfe, supra, at 70,