Do I have a potential defamation or wrongful termination or invasion of privacy suit?

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Texas
I was fired for what the company stated was my intent to leave and start a competing company. They emailed all or most of the employees to that effect after I was let go. My intent was not to leave or start a competing company, I was researching a business opportunity for the company, which I was planning to present to its board of directors. When letting me go, the company quoted emails from me to 2 other employes. One of the emails was on my personal email account only, and I don't know how they got it. They have refused to give me a copy of any of those emails. The statement to other employees about my intent was false and malicious, and hurt my reputation in my market...

Defamation: No. They may have been mistaken, but they have not defamed you. They have a valid reason for their belief.

Wrongful termination: No. There is no law prohibiting them from terming you because they believe you are going to set up a competing business, even if they are wrong. And again, they have a valid reason for their belief.

I'll let someone more knowledgeable than I about the laws regarding electronic transmissions manage the other.

nowselfemployed said:

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Texas
I was fired for what the company stated was my intent to leave and start a competing company. They emailed all or most of the employees to that effect after I was let go. My intent was not to leave or start a competing company, I was researching a business opportunity for the company, which I was planning to present to its board of directors. When letting me go, the company quoted emails from me to 2 other employes. One of the emails was on my personal email account only, and I don't know how they got it. They have refused to give me a copy of any of those emails. The statement to other employees about my intent was false and malicious, and hurt my reputation in my market...

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**A: you don't need a copy of the emails if you know what you sent out.
There is more to this story.

I don't express an opinion as to if there was a defamation. More facts would be needed. However, to the statement:

No. They may have been mistaken, but they have not defamed you. They have a valid reason for their belief.

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I disagree. Truth is a defense, not valid reason for belief. But, because I agree with HomeGuru, I won't go farther in discussion as I don't want to waste my time when we don't have anywhere near all the relevant facts.

Upon reading it further, I see that the e-mail states solely that he was let go. This is truth. He was let go. Therefore, it is not defamation by any definition.

However, I maintain that given that the company could produce copies of e-mails supporting a valid reason for the belief, stating that he was being let go because he was looking to create a competing business would not have been defamation even if they were mistaken. In any case, I'm not sure how this would be defamatory under any definition. He does not appear to have suffered any damages based on the statement; his damages, being let go, were independent of the e-mail that was sent out.

If the company sent out emails stating only that nowselfemployed was intending to start a competing company, and did not include the reasons for them believing this to be true, then the statement of the false fact could be defamatory, if the emails sent result in reputational injury.

A false statement can be viewed as opinion if there is supporting information included with the false statement that leads the reader of the false statement to an understanding of why what was said was said. If no such reasons for making the statement are included, however, the statement on its own can be defamatory if false, and providing supporting information after-the-fact does not necessarily remedy any reputational injury suffered from the original statement, does not necessarily prevent a defamation action, and may not be enough to support a successful defense to a defamation action.

An example: If I say someone is an alcoholic, and it is not true, that is a defamatory statement if it is believed by others to be true. If I say someone is an alcoholic because I have seen them in bars frequently, however, that is opinion based on my personal observation of them being in bars (even if the person is only drinking ice water when there or is in the bars collecting donations for a children's charity).

The plain statement is not supported, so people who hear that statement may suppose I know more about the person and his drinking habits than I do, and may more readily suppose that the statement I made is true. Facts are implied that do not exist. The supported statement, however, is my opinion based on observation only and may not be believed by others, who may understand that going to bars alone does not make someone an alcoholic and who may, themselves, frequent bars because the burgers are good.

I agree that there is probably more to the story here, though, and that there is not nearly enough presented in the original post to say whether there is any defamation action that can be pursued with any chance of success.

cbg said:

Defamation: No. They may have been mistaken, but they have not defamed you. They have a valid reason for their belief.

Wrongful termination: No. There is no law prohibiting them from terming you because they believe you are going to set up a competing business, even if they are wrong. And again, they have a valid reason for their belief.

I'll let someone more knowledgeable than I about the laws regarding electronic transmissions manage the other.

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To the OP, regarding the electronic transmissions:

Did your company have an acceptable use policy? It was probably something you signed, or a notice when you logged on to the computer that you never read and just clicked "OK" on. See, this AUP gives them the right to sniff any of your traffic on their network, as well as take screenshots and log your keystrokes without your knowledge. E-mail is sent in plaintext across the internet. You should NEVER e-mail something that you wouldn't want to have printed on the front of the New York Post.

Bottom line is that you could've been a lot more forward with this, and you may not have lost your job. What else were they supposed to think when they saw that kind of traffic? Absent any discussion between you and your manager about this initiative, any reasonable person could've assumed the same.

But no matter how you slice it, the ACTUAL statement that was ACTUALLY made, is "nowselfemployed was let go". That is a true statement and does not imply any wrongdoing on nowselfemployed's part, since, especially now, many people are let go for financial reasons or reorganizations. It is, additionally, NECESSARY for co-workers to know that he is no longer part of the organization. Could it have been worded differently? Sure. Does "he's been let go" imply any wrongdoing on his part? No.

What defamation there might have been if they had said something different is really immaterial.

nowselfemployed said:

the company quoted emails from me to 2 other employes. One of the emails was on my personal email account only, and I don't know how they got it.

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Sounds like they got it from one of the people you sent it to.

I agree, cbg, that just emailing employees that another employee has been let go would not be defamatory. You and I, however, seem to be reading the original post by nowselfemployed differently.

Nowselfemployed wrote that he was fired for what the company stated was his "intent to leave and start a competing business" and that the company then sent an email to employees to that effect. I understand "to that effect" to mean that the emails contained the erroneous fact - that nowselfemployed was let go due to his intent to start a competing business.

THAT sort of statement could, on its own, conceiveably be defamatory if false, although, admittedly, it would not be an extremely strong defamation case unless that erroneous fact is shown to have harmed his career opportunities or his reputation in some demonstrable way. And, of course, the contents of the emails nowselfemployed himself sent would have to be reviewed to see if they can easily be interpreted in the way the company interpreted them (which I suspect is the case here).

But you are definitely right, cbg, that an email about an employee being let go, on its own, would not support a defamation action.

Here are the missing details. Thank each of you for your replies and advice. Being too close to it, I’m not sure if it is all clear enough to help. Please let me know if you have any questions.

I ran the (internally and sales-focused) Training department of a sales-driven company. I am a subject matter expert in the field the company operates in, had been at the company for 4 years in a high visibility position. I have a 20 year background and am fairly well known in the field. My reputation at the company and in the industry was outstanding.

I had mentioned to my boss (one of 2 VP’s) before the end of 2008, and again in a Training update brief I had turned in just prior to the end-of-January board meeting, that I was interested in opportunities for my department to contribute in a profit-generating role. However, on several occasions over the last few months, my VP had suggested that my job would be safer if I moved into a sales role. Although it wasn’t what I wanted, I thought creatively about that option and about ways to serve the company meaningfully and profitably should the company ask me to take a demotion in order to save my job. It was clear that business was steadily declining for the company. Feeling financially vulnerable, I thought about which markets might be profitable over the next several years – “Where will the money be?” Chasing a “dead niche” held no interest for me, and having been self-employed for much of my career, I know how important it is to “follow the money”. Quickly, the government came up as a big-money potential client in my market. It seemed equally obvious that minority or women-owned businesses held a greater chance of success in the government market, so I decided to look into it. Having never done business with the government before, I was under the common perception that working with the government is a difficult and bureaucratic process, so further research was necessary.

I ran the concept by a close colleague (“Colleague 1”) at the company, who had successfully pitched new business ideas to the company’s board in the past. Her advice was to not bring a half-developed idea to the owners. To have a prayer of success, the plan would need to be to be fully developed; I’s dotted and T’s crossed and not a stone unturned. There would be tough questions, all of which would require confident answers for the idea to have a chance.

I also ran the concept by another colleague, (“Colleague 2”) a peer of mine (both of the people I shared the information with were also let go, at the same time and for the same stated reason). She shared similar concerns about her role at the company. The market had changed dramatically and her boss (let’s call him John – John was the one who discovered our research and was the one who let us all go) likely was motivated to remove Colleague 2’s layer of management to secure his own position in a potential downsizing. Colleague 2 felt vulnerable and believed she might also be asked to step into a sales role. She mentioned to me that she knows someone who had pitched a women-owned spinoff to a prior employer who embraced it whole-heartedly and to a profitable outcome.

It became quickly evident that in order to research opportunities with the government, one must be registered as a government contractor. Government agencies will not even talk to you unless you can first feed them your “cage code”, which identifies you as a registered contractor. In order to register and receive a cage code, one must first register a DBA with the county. I filed a DBA the day I was let go. Our research was at a standstill until we took that step.

Since this was a project to benefit the company, we briefly discussed what name to use for the DBA over the company’s email, and never thought twice about doing so. If we had intentions of starting a competitive business, we never would have used company systems or time. If we had intentions of hurting the company by establishing a competitive business, or to access the company’s data for our own purposes, there would be a record of such acts, and yet none exists. If I had been planning to leave the company, I would have protected the data, training and materials that I brought to the company when I joined. None of that happened, because our research was about a new business line for the company.

We were at such an early stage in our research that we were not at all ready to disclose the idea to anyone. When the time came, we planned only to disclose it directly to the partners, and perhaps to my VP.

Colleague 2 and I were confronted together by John and a witness (leader of the local Admin. team). Colleague 1 is in a remote location and was called later that day to be let go. John quoted a couple emails between me and Colleagues 1 & 2 (which the company is unwilling to send me copies of) about the name to use on a dba with the county. One of the emails was created on my personal email account. I opened that email on the company system the morning of my dismissal. They must have somehow “ghosted” my screen (not sure if that is the right term) in order to see it, which is part of my question - is that proper??

The confrontation could best be described as an ambush. I didn’t report John, my boss was not there, and I refused to answer to John. John took that to mean I was guilty. We were simply not ready to pitch the idea of securing government business for the company. In hindsight, we wish we would have handled a few things quite a bit differently that day. If we had been guilty, we probably would have better prepared ourselves for an ambush.

We had neither the intention of leaving the company nor that of starting a competitive company.
The company sent an email after our dismissal that we were let go for “attempting to start a competing company”. That being damaging to our reputations, we sent a letter to the board (this is a modified version of that letter – here, names and some details that wouldn’t make sense to you were removed) asking them to retract incorrect or slanderous information given to the team or anyone else. Since then, the company has back-peddled on their language to the team. Should I request severance, or initiate a suit?

Although your story may make sense as a whole, the information communicated in the emails exchanged between you and Colleagues 1 and 2 is not developed enough to have the company suppose anything other than what it supposed - that you were planning on starting a competing company.

Therefore, the email sent to other employees, saying that you were let go over your intent to start a competing business, was based on a reasonable conclusion drawn by John, based on the information contained in the emails, even when the conclusion drawn turned out to be a false one. Your termination was, likewise, reasonable, based on John's conclusion.

I think, with the additional information you have provided here, that a defamation action would be difficult for you to pursue with any hope of success, although you may want to contact an attorney in Texas to review the matter. The fact that it was a false statement that was circulated could be enough to support a case, if you can demonstrate reputational injury has been suffered as a result of the false statement. Proving that your "research" was being done for no other reason than to benefit the company will probably be difficult, however.

Finally, it has usually been found to be legal for a company to monitor the computer use of its employees and access the computer's content, especially if the company has an employee-known computer-monitoring policy in place. It is generally wise to assume, at any rate, that there is no privacy when using a company-owned computer. Courts, however, have made conflicting decisions when the material accessed from a company-owned computer is done by the company that has no policy in place and/or when the content accessed is from the personal email account of an employee. If you question the legality of John accessing your personal email account, you may want to review this aspect of your situation with a Texas attorney, as well.

You could, by the way, instead of attempting to pursue any legal action against your former company, start a competing business with the two colleagues who were also let go (if you did not sign any non-compete agreement with your former company). You already seem to have done a lot of research.