Manager A tells Employee X that he assigned a very important but difficult customer to Employee Y to handle (with the hope he would fail) in order to get rid of Employee Y for poor performance. Employee X tells her Manager B. Manager B makes the comment to Manager A that our division did not appreciate using our important customer to get rid of Employee Y. Can Manager A sue Manager B for defamation?
Rita Risser Chai Replies:
In order for Manager A to sue Manager B for defamation, A has to show that what B said was untrue. B said he used “our important customer to get rid of Employee Y.” If A is saying that’s untrue—that he did not use the customer to get rid of Employee Y—then Employee X testifies to what the manager said. If a jury believes Employee X, then Manager A loses. If the jury doesn’t believe X—maybe they think X made it up to get back at A—then Manager A still loses the case against B because B didn’t know X made it up. A would have to sue X for defamation.
More importantly, manager A failed in his performance as a manager in a number of ways. First, he told an employee confidential information about another employee without the need to know. Second, he tried to set up an employee to fail rather than dealing with the performance issues, if any, in a more straightforward manner. Third, I’m assuming, he is threatening to sue Manager B for defamation. All of these are grounds for discipline of Manager A.
This sounds like a horrible place to work. Good luck.
Posted 08-24-2020
Information here is correct at the time it is posted. Case decisions cited here may be reversed. Please do not rely on this information without consulting an attorney first.
