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Libel Suits OK Even If Libel Is Truthful
Defeat Globalism writes to tell us that many journalists, bloggers, and media law specialists are concerned about a new ruling by a US Court of Appeals in Boston. The new ruling is allowing a former Staples employee to sue the company for libel after an email was sent out informing other employees that he had been fired for violations of company procedures regarding expense reimbursements. "Staples has asked the full appeals court to reconsider the ruling, and 51 news organizations have filed a friend-of-the-court brief saying that the decision, if allowed to stand, 'will create a precedent that hinders the media's ability to rely on truthful publication to avoid defamation liability.' But Wendy Sibbison, the Greenfield appellate lawyer for the fired Staples employee, Alan S. Noonan, said the ruling applies only to lawsuits by private figures against private defendants, that is, defendants not involved in the news business, over purely private matters."
Hardly news, since this'll certainly be struck down \ overturned in future rulings. Trying to protect employees can go too far and become ridiculous.
"I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"
I don't see how telling people a guy did something wrong when he did could possibly be illegal, but why would they even do that? It's no one else's business. Sure, the word would probably get out anyway, but the company has nothing to gain by disseminating this kind of information.
Whale
My non-legal, everyday-speech understanding of the term 'libel' is that it means 'a lie that harms someone's reputation'. Can someone with more legal sense give a more accurate definition?
So, can I sue various politically-driven groups for libel, even if what they say about the group I'm in is true?
It is incorrect to say that truth is an absolute defense to a claim of libel. Apparently, Massachusetts law allows a suit to go ahead based on defamatory statements that are based on "actual malice."
Possibly Massachusetts law is incompatible with the US Constitution in this regard. I am inclined to believe it is. But Staples never brought it up--if they had, the panel would have mentioned it in at least one their opinions, and the court didn't.
In other words, the First Amendment question simply didn't come up. The sole question was what Massachusetts law was, not whether that law was consistent with the Constitution.
I can't find it in the second amendment either. This is going to be harder than I thought...
By its very definition, libel is always untruthful.
Semantics aside, here is the actual explanation for the ruling:
Noonan appealed to a three-member panel for the First Circuit, which initially upheld the ruling by Lasker. But last month it reversed itself on the libel claim, saying Noonan could pursue that part of his lawsuit because of a relatively obscure 1902 [Massachusetts] law.
The law says truth is a defense against libel unless the plaintiff can show "actual malice" by the person publishing the statement.
In ordinary discussions of First Amendment law, "actual malice" refers to the standard established in the landmark 1964 US Supreme Court decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.
In that context, it means a plaintiff who is a public figure can win a libel suit only after proving that a journalist knew a published statement was false or acted in reckless disregard for the truth.
But in the Massachusetts law cited by the appeals court, "actual malice" means "malevolent intent or ill will," said the panel. Noonan might be able to persuade a jury that the company demonstrated ill will; Baitler had never referred to a fired employee by name in a mass e-mail before, and jurors might conclude he "singled out Noonan in order to humiliate him," the court wrote.
So we're talking about:
1) A state law.
2) A ruling that simply allows the guy to sue; it's not a final verdict by any means.
3) A very specific instance, that will eventually be settled in court anyway, as per 2).
So, I don't think this is anything for journalists to get overly anxious over, in truth.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Unfortunately, the Bill of Rights doesn't apply in civil cases.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Yes, you're right. The fact that the economy is in the shitter is clearly the only important thing in the world, and all activity not specifically directed at correcting it should be stopped immediately. We'll begin with shutting the police and fire services, then dismissing all court cases in all courts in the US, and finally we'll halt all work on any construction or repair projects.
While we're at it, we should also do something about all the precious energy and attention we're currently exerting in our continued efforts to clothe and feed ourselves, as well as that silent thief of time, breathing.
Jackass.
But Wendy Sibbison, the Greenfield appellate lawyer for the fired Staples employee, Alan S. Noonan, said the ruling applies only to lawsuits by private figures against private defendants, that is, defendants not involved in the news business, over purely private matters.
Most bloggers would fall under "private persons" and not "news organizations" I'd think. So say something true that puts a person in less than favorable light on your blog, and you get a libel suit? The US just made another step in digging itself siz feet under with lawsuits.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You couldn't have said it better! http://www.ushistory.org/documents/amendments.htm#amend07
Really. You couldn't.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
It seems that the issue here is not just defamation and truth but also invasion of privacy. Even exposing truthful information can open one to a tort if that information is considered private and there is no reason to communicate it to third parties. In this case the court found it particularly troubling that the company violated its own policy on privacy when sending the email.
The other problem mentioned in the court opinion itself there was also a false light issue -- even if the content of the email was true, strictly speaking, it falsely led readers to believe that Noonan not only was fired but also violated the law.
Ultimately though the court was persuaded that even if the statement was true, it was made with "actual malice." The relevant Mass. law already has an exception built into defamation law that says a true statement can still be libelous if it is made with "actual malice," and they concluded in this case that the statement was made with such intent. The definition of actual malice the court settles on is quite different from the definition generally used in US law -- rather than "reckless disregard for truth," the court concludes that it means something like "ill will." It is this definition of "actual malice" that may undermine traditional interpretations of libel law. The notion that "truth as a defense" is undermined by this case is probably an exaggeration -- that defense is already undermined by the exemption itself as it exists in Massachusetts law.
Wow, this story covers pretty much all the angles that annoy me about bad legal decisions:
I'm a consultant, I claim expenses, I work with sales people who also claim expenses, and I don't see a need to be naive here. If you're sacking someone for what is essentially a free-loading lack of integrity, I don't you should be obliged by law to keep that fact hidden. True, normally it's a more respectful "John is moving on to new challenges" kind of message that goes out, but it shouldn't be illegal to let people know that bad behaviour can be caught and punished. Particularly in job roles that are typically well compensated in the context of any given employer, and where they are effectively entrusted with other people's money.
I'm assuming here that the "sloppy" record keeping means money has been claimed that wasn't supported by an appropriate paper trail. Because who sacks people for claiming less expenses than they were due? That said, it's possible this was a vindictive sacking over a minor infringement made in genuine error. But if that's the case, fight the legal battle on those grounds rather than trying to set a precedent that could have far broader impact. I gotta say my gut feel is that people who distort language so much as to say libel means telling the truth are not to be trusted...
The key point is that the trial court here has not considered any evidence yet. It made a purely legal ruling under Massachusetts law, and it was wrong because it failed to take into account the actual malice law.
No, the key point is that the legal principle that truth is an absolute defense against a charge of libel is under attack in Massachusetts.
This principle is one of the bedrocks upon which our freedom of speech is built.
You're right that it's not a bad ruling. It's a terrible ruling.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I think it will stick.
Terms of a person's firing are almost always non-public. A company as large as Staples can't publish to ALL it's employees that they fired Bob over $5.00 misappropriated on an expense report. That's malicious. It's appropriate to say we will (and have) terminated over expense reports being wrong without giving the offenders name.
I can't think of any company I've worked at that's attached names to memos like that. Even companies that actually call the cops on somebody don't typically inform the employees of the person's name, or particular details of the infraction beyond the company "rule book" for just this reason.
Added bold for emphasis. This whole thing seems like it should be a "public disclosure of private facts" suit, not a Libel suit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation
In law, defamation (also called calumny, libel, slander, and vilification) is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government or nation a negative image. Slander refers to a malicious, false and defamatory spoken statement or report, while libel refers to any other form of communication such as written words or images. Most jurisdictions allow legal actions, civil and/or criminal, to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against groundless criticism. Related to defamation is public disclosure of private facts, which arises where one person reveals information that is not of public concern, and the release of which would offend a reasonable person.
"Unlike libel, truth is not a defense for invasion of privacy."
Well, I'm glad that I followed my own suggestion, and reread the story of the Zenger case. It was weirder than I remembered, and perhaps more interesting than the current Staples thing, which is still in a bit of a fuzzy state.
It appears that in English law at least through 1735, truth was no defense whatsoever against a libel charge. Yup: completely irrelevant. That's exactly what the judge told the jury in Zenger. Once Zenger admitted to publishing the pamphlets in question, the judge told the jury that they had nothing to decide, and must return a verdict of "guilty."
Alexander Hamilton defended Zenger successfully, essentially by convincing the jury to nullify the law, a power that juries appear to possess through the present day, but which prosecutors and judges often seem to try to obscure.
I hope that someone can post more factual information regarding the history of this trial, and later libel law in the US. In particular:
1. I wonder whether the judge's instruction in the Zenger case constitutes what they call a "directed verdict," in which case the jury apparently defied the direction. Or was it just strong advice? Anyone know exactly how directed verdicts work? Does the jury have an opportunity to ignore the direction?
2. Can anyone clarify the subsequent English and US history of libel law? To what extent, and how, is truth established as a defense? Has the first amendment to the US constitution been deemed relevant?
3. Any further stuff on jury nullification?
Mike O'Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/
Unless the civil action involves the state or federal governments.
The law is different in every state, and even often within different counties of the same state. You cannot apply Wikipedia's definitions of crimes and torts to cases that are being disputed under the law of one specific jurisdiction, because there's a very good chance that the definitions and case law is not the same.
Wikipedia's definitions of crimes and torts are a usually a sort of lowest common denominator to help you understand the overall landscape of what general types of acts jurisdictions treat as crimes or torts; so, yes, jurisdictions normally have laws that deal with the public disclosure of private facts. The precise classification is always jurisdiction-specific; some jursidictions might have a separate tort or offense for it, some might treat it as one subcase of other offenses.
Are you adequate?
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they got this judgment right. Relevant Massachusetts law says libel is untruthful or malicious statements against a person's character. Staples made statements that, while truthful, may well have been malicious due to the scope and context of their presentation.
Now a judge or jury will hear arguments from both sides. Previously, a judge had simply heard Staples say (paraphrasing) "nothing in this widely distributed e-mail that defamed the plaintiff was factually untrue, so these charges must be dismissed." This disregarded the fact that the e-mail describing Noonan's firing for violation of company policies was itself a violation of company policy, that the subtext of the message implied he had willfully violated company policy for his own profit when he maintains the violations were done in a combination of good faith and company-wide SOP that defied the letter of the written and largely un-enforced official policy, and that the context and timing of the firing as well as the inclusion of his name in the e-mail might lead those who read it to believe that Staples felt he had broken the law.
Seems that both parties acted immorally. Noonan simply wants his day in court to prove that Staples also acted illegally. His case DOES deserve to be heard, and Massachusetts probably DOES need to reexamine this law.
I know what you did last summer. Just kidding, I don't work at the NSA.
There is almost no way this can apply to media defendants. Further, the only way it could apply would strip it of almost all of its teeth.
Still, I think those wondering why this didn't fall under a privacy tort are on the mark.
This is the release of private information of a highly embarrassing nature, one of the four classic privacy torts. The question is how does the state in question treat such a privacy tort (each is different).
Another interesting aspect of this case is the law in question, from 1902, is 12 years after the famous Warren and Brandeis "The Right to Privacy" Harvard Law Review article. (http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/privacy/Privacy_brand_warr2.html)
It appears the 1902 law may have been an early attempt to recognize a privacy tort through the tort of libel.
Finally, the torts are not criminal cases. Therefore, the actions of Staples can not be classified as "illegal." Accordingly, questions of intent are not terribly relevant (accept as far as specific tort elements are concerned, and then they are weighed differently than criminal intents).
I can see a useful principle of "employee confidentiality", appropriately delineated. But that seems like a separate issue from libel, and should be covered by a separate statute, with violations being prosecuted as "violation of employee confidentiality", not as "libel".
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