Is this defamation?

[upsetintx]

What is the name of your state? Texas

First I'd like to say TIA for reading this as its kind of long, and for any input given. I feel a bit weird about posting, but this has really got my husband and I down.

The problem I've just ran across, or my husband rather, is the loss of a great job due to a previous employers dishonesty during pre-employment verification.

Brief background:

My dear husband worked for a company in 2003-2004; at first as an employee and later as an independent contractor. Towards the last few months my husband started noticing that he wasn't getting paid correctly i.e. expenses pulled from the settlements that seemed abnormally high and/or didn't match the receipts that my husband maintained for his own records, so he asked for copies of any receipts that would explain the discrepency. He was not given an explanation and was refused receipts so my husband terminated working for them (he was not under contract to continue working for said company).

Hes had 2 jobs since, first one closed, and his present job. For both of those jobs he received a good reference from the above mentioned company.

Recently he was contacted by a potential employer that he had been waiting a long time to get in with; excellent pay, great benefits, and more time at home. After all the screening he was eventually denied, reason being the company from 2003-2004 gave a bad reference and stated that my husband was terminated.

The only thing that changed between the last job and this potiental job was in 2006 my husband and I received, from the IRS, a notice that stated we didn't claim enough business income for 2004. However I had proof to the contrary and provided all documents to the IRS and that was that. (The descrepency between our receipts and settlement checks and what the company claimed they paid out differed by 10's of thousands of dollars. Company didn't give him a 1099.) And shortly their after we were contacted by an attorney regarding a class action, but as far as I know my husband was not a part of that suit but we did provide a statement to the attorney.

My questions are:

1. Would the taxes issue and/or the class action suit have prompted ther dishonesty in regards to past employment?

2. Could this be characterized as defamation/slander?

3. If you were in our shoes would you contact an attorney regarding this?

 

[Shay-Pari'e]

You need to go into more details in order to answer your question. Giving a bad referance is NOT defamation.

 

[upsetintx]

We will be getting a denial statement from the company that didn't hire him, that should give me more details as to what was actually stated/said.

The key to this is. My husband did not get fired/terminated from the previous company. He stopped working for this company; amicably and legally. This company has given truthful refrence regarding my husbands time there for the last 2 employers he applied and got hired on with. Matter of fact the owner of the previous company was asking my husband to come back to work for them for several months after he left.

When my husband filled the application out for this prospective job, he did so as he had previously stating that he, my husband, voluntarily left that company. If my husband had in fact been terminated he would have filled out the application with that explaination, but he wasn't fired.

After the prospective company spoke to the previous company, and were told that my husband had been fired for misconduct (which is completely false and there are witnesses that were there at the time this took place, also they have never claimed that before. I can get a statement from husbands current employer stating that.), they assumed that my husband lied on his application. Resulting in denial of the job.

In sum my husband was denied the job because the previous company lied, and I believe we can prove it.

The only reason that I could see for them to start lying now is due to their claim of wages paid to my husband that they grossly overstated. I believe that with our rebuttal to the IRS with all of our documentation, which proved that my husband was not paid that much by this company, the IRS must have sent something to that company wondering why the discrepency and they must have had to adjust their claims.

I personally know of 2 other ex workers of this company that also had do deal with this same notice from the IRS where the company grossly over claimed the amount of money paid to the workers. They 2 had to prove that what they claimed on thier SE taxes was correct. There very well could have been more that had to prove thier taxes as a result of this company. It seems reasonable that there could have been some type of tax fraud implication or an in depth audit by the IRS against this company due to this.

 

[Quaere]

We will be getting a denial statement from the company that didn't hire him, that should give me more details as to what was actually stated/said.

Come back when you get the statement and let us know specifically what the prior employer said.

He stopped working for this company; amicably and legally.

Did he actually resign? In writing?