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Defamation in the Workplace

Defamation in the workplace?  A lot of people forget that defamation can happen in the workplace. The California Civil Code Section 43 says:
“Besides the personal rights mentioned or recognized in the Government Code, every person has, subject to the qualifications and restrictions provided by law, the right of protection from bodily restraint or harm, from personal insult, from defamation, and from injury to his personal relations.”  Defamation consists of libel and slander. 

“Libel is a false and unprivileged publication by writing, printing, picture, effigy, or other fixed representation to the eye, which exposes any person to hatred, contempt, ridicule, or obloquy, or which causes him to be shunned or avoided, or which has a tendency to injure him in his occupation.”

“Slander is a false and unprivileged publication, orally uttered, and also communications by radio or any mechanical or other means which: 1. Charges any person with crime, or with having been indicted, convicted, or punished for crime; 2. Imputes in him the present existence of an infectious, contagious, or loathsome disease; 3. Tends directly to injure him in respect to his office, profession, trade or business, either by imputing to him general disqualification in those respects which the office or other occupation peculiarly requires, or by imputing something with reference to his office, profession, trade, or business that has a natural tendency to lessen its profits; 4. Imputes to him impotence or a want of chastity; or 5. Which, by natural consequence, causes actual damage.”

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=civ&group=00001-01000&file=43-53

The elements of a cause of action for defamation generally must include: 1. A false and defamatory statement concerning another; 2. The unprivileged publication of the statement to a third party (that is, somebody other than the person defamed by the statement); 3. If the defamatory matter is of public concern, fault amounting at least to negligence on the part of the publisher; and 4. Damage to the plaintiff.

Most people who have been wrongfully terminated have been defamed because the statements tend to: 1) be false; 2) get published to others via a personnel file; and 3) injure the wrongfully terminated in respect to his or her office, profession, trade or business. 

If you feel like you’ve been wrongfully terminated you should check out our page: http://www.californiaemploymentlawfirm.com/wrongful-termination and contact a San Diego employment lawyer today.