The District of Columbia Court of Appeals applied absolute immunity

we have applied the judicial-proceedings privilege to statements made preliminary to judicial proceedings so long as “an attorney [made the statements] while performing his function as such,” there is “a reasonable nexus between the publication in question and the litigation under consideration,” and the statements had a genuine “relationship to potential litigation” and were not made as a “mere afterthought or [with a] sham rationale.” These requirements have been met in instances where an attorney solicited shareholders of a corporation to participate in a class action lawsuit against the corporation; an attorney questioned an adversary’s competency in the English language while waiting in a hearing room of the Rental Accommodations