Defamation

·        To recover for defamation, an employee must demonstrate that the false statements of an employer injured his or her reputation. This can be difficult, but in certain situations the law presumes injury. One of these situations is when the statement concerns the plaintiff's business or occupational skills. This presumption is important in employment situations since alleged defamation often occurs in the context of assessing the employee's skills, or apparent lack thereof. However, just because the statement may concern the plaintiff's alleged actions in the workplace does not automatically mean that the statement relates to his or her business or occupational skills.

·        For a statement to be defamatory, the reader or listener must understand it to be such. Accordingly, a communication that is understood by all to be a joke is not defamatory.

·        More than falsity must be proved in order for the employee to recover. Often both malice by the employer and publication of the defamatory statement must be alleged and proved. 

·        Publication or communication has been proved or demonstrated sufficiently to support a lawsuit when:

o       An employee's supervisor falsely told a manager who ultimately discharged him that the employee had made unauthorized charges to the employer's credit card and had taken home computer equipment.

o       Former employees, terminated after being falsely accused of gross insubordination for refusing to alter their expense accounts, were required to tell prospective employers the reason that they had been fired, raising a cause of action against the original employer.

o       A public employer's intra-governmental communication of a former employee's discharge for "unprofessional conduct," as well as its giving the press access to the employee's personnel file containing her termination letter, amounted to a sufficient publication to support the initiation of a defamation suit.

·        Our attorneys have extensive experience representing clients who have suffered defamation at the hands of their employers.  Our attorneys have litigated these issues extensively in state, federal, administrative and arbitration forums.  Your time for remedy is limited under the law.
Contact our office for a consultation.

Invasion of Privacy Through False Light

Invasion of Privacy Through False Light arises in situations similar to that of Defamation.  If during the course of your employment, your employer made or permitted to be made, public false derogatory and defamatory comments about you, your employer may be liable for invasion of privacy through false light.  Invasion of privacy through false light occurs when individuals make false derogatory and defamatory comments concerning your character, history or activities, having knowledge of and acting in reckless disregard as to the falsity of the publicized matter and the false light into which you would be placed.  Additionally, these individuals knew or should have known that such a misrepresentation of your character, history, and activities could reasonably be expected to cause you serious offense, and that such statements about you would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.

Our attorneys have extensive experience representing clients who have suffered the results of invasion of privacy through false light at the hands of their employers.  Our attorneys have litigated these violations extensively at state, federal, administrative and arbitration forums.  Your time for remedy is limited under the law. 
Contact our office for a consultation.

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