Articles Posted in Defamation, Libel and Slander

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With all the hate crimes going on these days, it can be hard sometimes to remember that it’s the 2010s and not the 1960s, but strides have been made and there are laws in place to protect everyone’s right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of their race or ethnicity.

A resident of Mount Prospect, Illinois recently allegedly violated some of these rights granted to the members of an African-American family that moved in to her neighborhood. The members of the family in question (Iris Howe and her grown children, Samuel Mobley and Sidney Powell) filed a civil lawsuit against their neighbor, Terry Calliari, for allegedly making them the targets of racial harassment.

According to the civil complaint, Calliari allegedly made repeated use of racial slurs, tried to prevent Howe and her children from using the pool included in the complex, followed them, and blocked their paths with her car. The lawsuit alleges the harassment began the day they moved in – when Calliari allegedly used a racial epithet to refer to her new neighbors – and continued for the next five years.

In those five years, the civil lawsuit alleges that Calliari’s persistent racial harassment against the family prevented them from enjoying their basic rights to enjoy their own home, personal property, and community in peace. Continue reading ›

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Most large companies have entire departments devoted to handling their public relations and part of their job description includes coming up with ways to counteract negative media attention. Most of those strategies don’t involve filing a defamation lawsuit against the news organization that published the unflattering statements, but that’s exactly what Hummingbird Defense Systems did after two news organizations reported a breach of the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center, an intelligence center that was set up by local government authorities after the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Hummingbird Defense Systems is a small firm located in Phoenix and run by Steve Greschner. In 2007, a Chinese national was hired by Hummingbird Defense Systems as a computer programmer, which allegedly gave him access to the Arizona driver’s license database and possibly to a list of investigators and intelligence analysts. When the employee allegedly returned to Beijing with two laptops, as well as additional hard drives, the security breach was not immediately reported to the state’s attorney general, despite the fact that it may have affected as many as 5 million Arizona residents.

At the time that Hummingbird Defense Systems hired the Chinese national, Greschner was allegedly dating a Chinese immigrant who had been naturalized as a U.S. citizen and she allegedly urged Greschner to hire the Chinese national. She was never charged as a spy, although she was allegedly a suspect for a while and a federal judge did revoke her citizenship status. Continue reading ›

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Because stock trading is full of opportunities for traders to take advantage of their positions, the law takes accusations of fraud very seriously, but it works the other way, too. Traders have to work hard to protect their reputations because their livelihood depends on it. As a result, stock traders tend to react quickly if they’re ever accused of insider trading or any other forms of fraud.

According to a recent defamation lawsuit, Allstate allegedly falsely accused four traders of illegally taking advantage of their insider trading knowledge by intentionally timing trades in such a way that would inflate their own bonuses. Daniel Rivera, the managing director of Allstate’s equity division, along with three senior portfolio managers, were the four employees accused and fired as a direct result of those accusations.

In October 2009, Allstate announced the work of its equity division would be outsourced to Goldman Sachs. In December of that same year, it fired Rivera and his three senior portfolio managers (Kensinger, Meacock, and Scheuneman) for allegedly violating Allstate’s code of ethics. Because the four employees were supposedly fired with cause, they were not eligible for severance pay. The timing is certainly suspicious, but if Allstate did this to save money and avoid paying four senior employees their severance packages, the plan, if this was the plan, a fact which Allstate surely denies, then the plan backfired. Continue reading ›

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Nobody likes getting a bad job performance review, but can an employee who receives one and later loses her job bring a winnable claim for defamation? Probably not, according to a recent decision issued by the Illinois First District Appellate Court.

Sandra G. was employed by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) in an executive position. Upon hire, Sandra signed an offer letter stating her employment was “at will” and could be terminated at any time. About a year and a half later, she was informed the budgetary funding for her position had been eliminated, ending her employment with AANA.

In 2010, she brought a complaint against AANA and one of their executives alleging defamation per se, invasion of privacy, and intentional interference with business expectancy, as a result of a negative job performance evaluation that preceded her termination. Defamation per se, or “on its face,” arises from statements falsely asserting that someone is involved in unlawful activity or is deficient in her professional abilities. In all defamation cases, a plaintiff must prove the statements were uttered to a third party. Continue reading ›

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A board member’s reporting of suspected corporate financial malfeasance to the SEC is protected from litigious retaliation by Illinois’ Citizenship Participation Act, but reporting it to shareholders is not.

Ditto Holdings, Inc. is a private shareholder-owned corporation whose sole subsidiary is Ditto Trade Inc., an online retail stock trading company. In 2013, Trade CEO and Ditto Holdings board member Paul S. allegedly discovered evidence of suspicious financial activity by Ditto’s chairman and CEO, Joseph F., including possible securities law violations. Records indicated Joseph had been diverting the company’s capital to himself personally and had spent $1.5 million for the benefit of himself and his family. Paul S. wrote to Ditto’s board revealing his concerns. After receiving a hostile response from the general counsel and another director, Paul S. reported his allegations to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Shortly thereafter, Paul was notified the board had fired him as CEO of Trade for failing to obtain his brokerage license. After allegedly learning Joseph was attempting to have him removed from the board, Paul sent an e-mail to more than 200 Ditto shareholders, claiming to be the victim of retaliation for doing his duty as a board member. Paul was then informed he had been removed from the board by consent of the shareholders, and removed as executive vice president for his “destructive and reckless” actions. Continue reading ›

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Celebrities often have to deal with false reports about their personal and professional lives. It’s a known hazard of the job and each celebrity deals with it in their own way.

It’s rare that a celebrity will go so far as to file a defamation lawsuit against someone for making false statements because they’re very difficult to prove. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution grants us the right to free speech and courts have constantly had to balance that right with the right of individuals to protect their careers and reputations in the event someone makes defamatory statements about them.

One of the ways the courts strikes this balance is by requiring public figures to bear a higher burden of proof when filing defamation lawsuits. The law is based on the idea that free and open discussion of public figures is in the best interests of the public, and should therefore be encouraged. As a result, the law requires public figures to be able to prove the person or entity knew the statements were false at the time they were made, and that the defamatory statements had a significant negative impact on their career. Continue reading ›

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Anyone who has had to face allegations of defamation would probably agree that having to deal with such a lawsuit constitutes personal injury. Defendants involved in these types of lawsuits often have to pay hefty legal fees in order to defend themselves against the allegations, to say nothing of the damage the lawsuit does to the individual’s personal and professional reputations.

What many people might not be aware of is that many wealthy and middle class people have insurance policies that cover most of these legal costs. It’s common for the defendants to react with surprise when they’re told they can have their insurance company cover most of the costs of the lawsuit, but in the latest defamation lawsuits against Bill Cosby, his insurer was the one who was surprised.

Bill Cosby is currently accused of having sexually assaulted dozens of women in the course of his very long career as a comedian and entertainer. The statute of limitations has expired on the sexual assault charges, but that hasn’t stopped his alleged victims from seeking a different form of restitution.

Ten women in three different states have filed defamation lawsuits against Cosby for denying their claims of sexual abuse and allegedly trying to tarnish their reputations after they came forward with their accusations. Continue reading ›

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The Internet has changed the way everyone does business. A lot of companies that used to rely on professional reviews and/or word of mouth to spread news about their business now have to deal with online reviews. Multiple sites exist for consumers to post reviews of just about any business and Yelp is one of the most popular review sites.

These sites make it easy for consumers looking to try a new restaurant, hotel, gym, etc., especially consumers who are new to the area. All they have to do is perform a quick search of local businesses on Yelp and the site will provide the average rating users have given that business. Users can then scroll through to see individual ratings and what each reviewer had to say about the business.

These reviews have proven problematic for many companies, since most consumers only take the time to post a review if they’ve had a really great experience or a really bad experience, which can skew the results of the average review. Despite the issues this has caused for many businesses, some have handled it better than others. Continue reading ›

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As more and more companies use non-disparagement clauses in their Terms of Service and other contracts with their consumers, it can feel to customers like they have no outlet to talk about their negative experiences with certain businesses. Congress has proposed a bill called the Consumer Review Freedom Act, which would prohibit companies from retaliating against consumers who leave negative reviews, but the law is slow to catch up with technology. Fortunately, there are other ways to deal with these non-disparagement clauses without resorting to the courts.

Review sites such as Yelp, Angie’s List, and Trip Advisor can take the initiative and help punish businesses who have been known to prohibit customers from posting negative reviews. Yelp will take down any reviews that have been posted by anyone who was not a consumer or did not have a direct experience with the specific business being reviewed, but that doesn’t always help consumers and there’s more that can be done.

Angie’s List has a “penalty box” in which businesses that do not sufficiently respond to consumer complaints get excluded from category and keyword searches. Only users of the site who know the name of the business can find it, which can seriously injure the business by preventing potential new customers in the area from finding it. Many businesses depend on consumer review sites such as Angie’s List and Yelp, so by making it more difficult for potential customers to find them, the sites can provide a serious incentive for businesses not to try to mess with their consumers’ reviews. Trip Advisor also has a penalty sign it displays on pages where it has detected instances of possible fraud. Continue reading ›

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Technology has been advancing so quickly in just the past few years that the law is still struggling to keep up, but the law is successfully keeping pace, at least in some areas.

Dr. Rosalind Griffin recently demonstrated what appears to be a lack of understanding of both defamation law and how the Internet works when she filed an ethics complaint against an attorney, Steven Gursten, for allegedly writing defamatory statements about her on his blog. She demanded that the ethics commission intercede and force Gursten to remove his blog post even though she didn’t file a slander suit and would never likely be able to obtain such a prior restraint on speech through a court action.  Griffin instead opted to use an ethics charge to block speech.

Gursten wrote that Dr. Griffin had testified in court that his client had told her things that directly contradicted what Gursten’s client said in Dr. Griffin’s recorded medical examination. The blog post Gursten wrote according to Dr. Griffin implied Dr. Griffin’s conduct constituted perjury and a serious abuse of her position as an insurance medical examiner. Continue reading ›

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