The Virginia Defamation Law Blog

January 20, 2026

Accusations of Sexual Abuse Held Protected by Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine

The ecclesiastical abstention doctrine traces its roots to Supreme Court precedent holding that the First Amendment secures a sphere of institutional autonomy for religious organizations. Under this jurisprudence, churches enjoy freedom from secular intrusion in matters central to their identity, including questions of faith, doctrine, and internal governance. Historically, courts applied the doctrine primarily in disputes involving church property and the appointment or removal of clergy. More recently, however, the Supreme Court has clarified that the doctrine extends equally to disagreements concerning internal church administration. (See, e.g., Serbian E. Orthodox Diocese for U.S. of Am. & Canada v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 710 (1976)). In essence, when resolving a dispute would require a civil court to engage in substantial interpretation of religious law or ecclesiastical structure, the court must defer to the determinations of the church’s highest adjudicatory body and treat those decisions as binding with respect to issues of doctrine and governance.

The doctrine does not shield churches from judicial review of matters that are wholly secular in nature. The central concern is whether adjudication would require courts to interpret religious doctrine or to second-guess ecclesiastical judgments; the doctrine does not require courts to abstain simply because a dispute involves religious actors or has some incidental connection to religious principles. For example, a false accusation that a church member punched another church member in the face would not be protected because such a statement can be evaluated under neutral principles of law, without reference to issues of faith or religious doctrine. One might assume a false accusation of sexual abuse would also fall into this category, but as with any defamation claim, it depends on the context in which the statement was made. If it’s clear that the term “sexual abuse” was being used according to a church’s definition of sexual abuse, the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine will indeed apply and protect the speaker from defamation liability. So held the Virginia Court of Appeals in the case of Catholic Diocese of Richmond v. Oliver Smalls, decided November 5, 2025.

December 20, 2025

Truth, as Defense, Must Match Defamatory Sting

by Lee E. Berlik

Truthful statements are generally not actionable as defamation. A substantially true statement that is factually accurate in all material respects and that does not imply any undisclosed defamatory message is not something upon which a defamation lawsuit may be brought. Still, a defendant who asserts a truth defense needs to establish not simply that some technical aspect of the statement is true but that its defamatory sting is true. When a published statement accuses the plaintiff of intentional criminal conduct, for example, the defendant cannot defeat a defamation per se claim by pointing to a technical or arguable inaccuracy in the statement as a whole that does not establish intentional criminal conduct.

Let’s look at last week’s decision in Patricia Thurston v. BankUnited, N.A., from the Western District of Virginia. Patricia Thurston owned residential real property in Roanoke County, which she sold in January 2024. Pike Title and Escrow, LLC, handled the closing and prepared a settlement statement showing that Thurston was to receive $66,484.74 in sale proceeds. Thurston provided wiring instructions for her Truist Bank account, and Pike Title transmitted those instructions to BankUnited, N.A., the bank that held Pike Title’s escrow account. On January 12, 2024, BankUnited wired the funds to Thurston’s account without incident, and the transaction initially appeared complete and proper. At the time of closing, a prior deed of trust on the property had been paid in full; Pike Title prepared a Certificate of Satisfaction reflecting that payoff and recorded it shortly thereafter, having charged Thurston a recording fee for that purpose.

November 11, 2025

Misleading Press Release Results in Defamation Claim

by Lee E. Berlik

Few workplace experiences are more demoralizing than being unfairly blamed by a superior for a mistake that was not one’s own, particularly when the error in fact originated with the supervisor. The injustice becomes especially acute when the supervisor or the employer has ready access to the media and the capacity to shape public perception through official press releases. When that power is misused to shift blame and to publicly impugn the competence or character of a subordinate, the reputational damage can be severe. If a press release contains a false statement that tends to lower an employee in the estimation of the community or deter others from associating with him, defamation liability may arise.

The Western District of Virginia recently faced such a situation and decided the plaintiff had alleged sufficient facts on his defamation claim to survive a motion to dismiss. The facts of Jacob T. Unger v. Timothy C. Carter are essentially as follows, as laid out in the opinion (and derived from the allegations in the complaint).

October 16, 2025

Legislative Immunity Only Protects Legislative Acts

by Lee E. Berlik

Among the types of statements protected from defamation claims by an absolute privilege are statements made in connection with the proceedings of bodies creating legislation. Earlier today, the Supreme Court of Virginia issued an opinion in Brooks-Buck v. Wahlstrom in which it offered some clarification regarding the scope of this legislative immunity. At issue was whether a school board member’s written statement was protected by common-law legislative immunity when made during internal disciplinary proceedings targeting another board member. The statement claimed that the plaintiff, Deborah Wahlstrom, had committed perjury in an earlier FOIA action.

The Court held that while initiating disciplinary proceedings against fellow board members is a protected legislative function, legislative immunity does not extend to statements about third parties when those statements are not integral to the legislative act itself. In affirming the lower court’s denial of immunity at the demurrer stage, the Court emphasized that the shield of legislative immunity does not protect defamatory statements that stray from the core purposes of legislative activity. (The Court did note, by the way, that the immunity argument should have been raised by a plea in bar, not a demurrer, since legislative immunity is an affirmative defense.)

September 10, 2025

Reporting on Allegations Doesn’t Necessarily Imply They’re True

by Lee E. Berlik

When an individual is publicly accused of misconduct, reporting on the existence of such allegations—without more—does not necessarily give rise to a claim for defamation. This principle is not just a matter of common sense; it is a well-established rule in Virginia defamation law, where courts require that allegedly defamatory implications be tied to the actual words used by the speaker or writer and reasonably drawn from those words. The Court of Appeals of Virginia reaffirmed this principle in Alexander v. The Martin Agency, decided September 9, 2025. In a decision affirming the dismissal of a defamation claim, the court made clear that merely referring to the fact that allegations were made—without asserting or implying their truth—is not actionable as defamation.

The opinion describes the facts of the case as follows. Joe Alexander is the former Chief Creative Officer at The Martin Agency. He resigned in late 2017 after the company received multiple sexual harassment complaints against him. These events were widely covered in the media, with various reports describing the nature of the allegations and linking his departure to the resulting scandal. In the wake of Alexander’s resignation, The Martin Agency hired Kristen Cavallo as CEO, a move broadly celebrated as a turning point for the company’s culture and public image. In 2019, the agency reposted on its website three articles that praised Cavallo’s leadership and discussed the broader cultural shift following Alexander’s departure. The articles referenced the prior sexual harassment allegations and described them as part of the backdrop to Cavallo’s hiring and leadership. One article referred to Alexander as having “behaved badly,” and another quoted Cavallo as saying, “Don’t waste a good crisis,” in reference to the company’s transformation.

July 24, 2025

Privileged Statements to the Police

by Lee E. Berlik

In Virginia, citizens enjoy a qualified privilege to report suspected crimes to law enforcement. But what happens when such a report turns out to be wrong—or even wildly untrue? Can the accused sue for defamation? The answer, as highlighted by two recent decisions from the Virginia Court of Appeals, depends not on whether the statement was ultimately false, but on whether it was made in good faith. Two opinions issued just months apart reached starkly different conclusions on the viability of defamation claims stemming from reports to police. In Massie v. Ulta Beauty, Inc. (decided July 1, 2025), the court affirmed the trial court’s decision to throw the case out on demurrer. By contrast, in Kidd v. Bazazan (decided May 13, 2025), the court affirmed a jury verdict awarding $150,000 in damages. Both cases involved statements made to the police. The distinguishing factor was the existence or absence of malice.

As discussed earlier on this blog, Virginia law recognizes a qualified privilege for statements made to law enforcement about suspected crimes. That means a speaker is generally shielded from defamation liability for such statements unless the plaintiff can show by “clear and convincing” evidence that the privilege has been lost or abused. This could happen if, for example, (1) the statements were made with knowledge that they were false or with reckless disregard for their truth; (2) the statements were communicated to third parties who have no duty or interest in the subject matter; (3) the statements were motivated by personal spite or ill will; (4) the statements included strong or violent language disproportionate to the occasion; or (5) the statements were not made in good faith.

June 20, 2025

Virginia’s “Exact Words” Requirement: Don’t Sue If You Don’t Know What Was Said

by Lee E. Berlik

Virginia state courts have made it abundantly clear: if you’re going to sue someone for defamation, you’d better know exactly what they said—and be able to plead those words with precision at the outset of the case, without the benefit of the discovery process. In Bennett v. Lundh, a June 2025 opinion from the Court of Appeals of Virginia, the court reinforced this long-standing doctrine in emphatic terms. The opinion doesn’t just affirm the dismissal of a defamation claim with prejudice—it offers a primer on why the “in haec verba” (i.e., verbatim) pleading standard exists, how it works, and what happens when a plaintiff ignores it.

The basic facts of the case go like this: Ian Wesley Bennett and Katerina Lundh were coworkers working under a federal government contract. In August 2022, the two attended a business trip to San Francisco. According to the complaint, an incident occurred after dinner one evening in which Lundh—allegedly intoxicated—bumped into Bennett. He claims to have playfully nudged her, after which she slapped him across the face. Later, he made a comment about her personal history, prompting a second slap. Hours later, at a bar with colleagues, a coworker confronted Bennett, accusing him of grabbing Lundh and threatening to report him. That same accusation was apparently referenced in subsequent disciplinary action and ultimately contributed to Bennett’s removal from the government contract.

June 5, 2025

Juries May Base Verdicts on Defamatory Statements Whether Expressed or Implied

by Lee E. Berlik

Defamation liability isn’t limited to false statements made in direct and unequivocal terms; liability may also arise out of statements made by inference, implication, or insinuation. If a jury verdict is based on a statement of opinion (which might happen if the trial court erroneously overrules a demurrer), the verdict should be set aside or reversed because statements of opinion are protected by the First Amendment and are not actionable. Upholding the verdict, however, doesn’t necessarily require that the verdict be based on a factual assertion that is false on its face. If the words at issue are reasonably capable of a defamatory interpretation through inference or innuendo, that will be sufficient to uphold the verdict. A statement may be actionable if the words carry a provably false factual connotation, even if not expressed directly.

Earlier this week, the Virginia Court of Appeals decided Brown v. Grundy, Record No. 1467-23-4, which involved a challenge to a defamation verdict of $2 million (reduced by trial court to $1.85 million). The case centered on a letter sent by Charles H. Brown, III, D.D.S., to patients of his dental practice, explaining the supposed reasons for the termination of his associate, Dr. Richard B. Grundy. On December 4, 2018—two days before officially terminating Dr. Grundy’s employment—Dr. Brown sent a letter to patients in which he offered an explanation that included the following:

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May 1, 2025

Willful and Malicious Defamation Is Not Dischargeable in Bankruptcy

by Lee E. Berlik

One of the main goals of the Bankruptcy Code is to give honest debtors a chance to start over financially. But to strike a fair balance between helping debtors and protecting creditors’ rights to collect what they’re owed, the Code makes clear that some debts can’t be wiped out—especially when public policy calls for it. That includes debts tied to a debtor’s misconduct. For instance, bankruptcy courts have long held that someone who commits fraud shouldn’t be able to use bankruptcy as a shield. When it comes to defamation claims, the relevant Code section is 11 U.S.C. § 523(a)(6), which blocks the discharge of debts that stem from a debtor’s willful and malicious actions. Is defamation a willful and malicious action? Well, that depends.

Defamation judgments are notoriously difficult to categorize as dischargeable or nondischargeable because the tort of defamation doesn’t fit neatly into a single category, as the level of intent needed to hold someone liable can vary depending on who’s involved. If the person suing is a public figure, for example, they have to show that the defendant either knowingly made a false statement or did so with serious doubts about its truth. If the plaintiff is a private figure, on the other hand, the bar is lower—they just need to show the defendant was careless or negligent, without needing to prove any intent to harm. So bankruptcy courts will normally want to hear some evidence before they will rule on whether a particular defamation judgment is dischargeable.

March 28, 2025

Retrospective Application of the “Of and Concerning” Test

by Lee E. Berlik

To be actionable in Virginia, statements alleged to be defamatory must satisfy the “of and concerning” test: the statement at issue must expressly or impliedly refer to the plaintiff, in a manner clear enough to communicate that reference to others who know the plaintiff and understand the context of the statement. A case crossed my desk this week involving an unusual fact pattern. At the time an allegedly defamatory statement was uttered, the speaker did not actually know of whom he was speaking; he was commenting on an anonymous report. He was essentially saying that whoever wrote the report was a liar. He didn’t know who wrote the report at the time he made those comments and clearly didn’t intend to direct his accusation against any particular individual. But the report’s author (the subject of his criticism) became known at a later date. It therefore became apparent to readers at that later time whom his statements were about. So would the court apply the “of and concerning” test retrospectively or dimiss the case due to the lack of a specific target at the time the statements were made? In the case of Blake v. Frederick County Fire and Rescue Dept., the court didn’t hestitate to conclude the of-and-concerning test had been satisfied, reasoning that “extrinsic facts may make it clear that a statement refers to a particular individual although the language used appears to defame nobody.”

The dispute began with Casey Blake, an administrative assistant at the Frederick County Fire and Rescue Department (FCFRD). In March 2022, her son Nick, then a recruit firefighter, experienced a serious medical emergency during a physically demanding training session. According to the complaint, instructors ignored his repeated warnings about physical distress, mocked him, and forced him to continue exercising until an ambulance was required. Blake reported the incident to Fire Chief Steven Majchrzak, but he quickly dismissed the concern as a misunderstanding. Over a year later, in July 2023, another recruit named Ian Strickler died under similar circumstances. Troubled by the department’s internal response and believing it was trying to avoid liability, Blake anonymously wrote a letter to Strickler’s family. The letter described the department’s past failures — including her son’s near-death incident — and urged the family to investigate and consult a lawyer. Blake mailed the letter anonymously, hoping it would reach the state safety investigator handling the case.