On Slander

[Ted761]

California

I can't have a discussion here without your control freak moderators wanting to feel powerful and important by exerting too much control over people, and closing a thread (which I just opened), with no reason given.

Contrary to a comment that was made, lying to a manager about someone is not an opinion, it's called a lie and slander. A lie is a lie, regardless of the ambiguity of our post-modernist age.

Slander is defined as: "the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation." That is exactly what happened in my case.

I don't recommend these forums, because a lot of unprofessional information is given by people who don't know the law. My advice is to talk with an attorney.

 

[Taxing Matters]

It depends very much what exactly was said. If it was false statement of fact (e.g. Ted stole $10,000 from the company) that generally would be actionable in court. But if the statement is one of opinion (e.g. I think Ted is a terrible employee) then there is no defamation claim even if the reputation with your manager was damaged by it. Where it gets harder are statements which are part fact and part opinion. Then one must untangle what part is factual and which is not in order to analyze whether the statement might be a good defamation claim. One significant problem with a case like yours is having admissible evidence of the false statement and that it was that false statement that resulted in whatever adverse action the manager took.

 

[Just Blue]

It depends very much what exactly was said. If it was false statement of fact (e.g. Ted stole $10,000 from the company) that generally would be actionable in court. But if the statement is one of opinion (e.g. I think Ted is a terrible employee) then there is no defamation claim even if the reputation with your manager was damaged by it. Where it gets harder are statements which are part fact and part opinion. Then one must untangle what part is factual and which is not in order to analyze whether the statement might be a good defamation claim. One significant problem with a case like yours is having admissible evidence of the false statement and that it was that false statement that resulted in whatever adverse action the manager took.

posting history.