Workplace Defamation Category Archives — The Virginia Defamation Law Blog Published by Reston Defamation Attorney — Virginia Slander & Libel Lawyer

July 29, 2026

Without Defamatory Sting, Privilege Defenses Go Unaddressed

When a defamation defendant can invoke statutory reporting immunity, anti-SLAPP immunity, and common law qualified privilege all at once, one might expect an appellate court to resolve the case on one of those defenses. In Wang v. Taylor, Record No. 2006-25-3 (Va. Ct. App. July 7, 2026), the Court of Appeals of Virginia did no such thing. In an unpublished memorandum opinion by Judge Bernhard, the court affirmed a demurrer to a nurse practitioner’s defamation claim on the narrow ground that the challenged statements lacked the requisite defamatory “sting.” Because sting was lacking, the court found it unnecessary to address any of the three immunity defenses the defendants had raised. The opinion is a clean illustration of the court’s gatekeeping role in defamation cases and of how a plaintiff cannot support a claim by isolating minor factual inaccuracies within a communication whose defamatory substance is conceded to be true.

The opinion presents the following facts. Zhan Wang, a licensed nurse practitioner, worked in a psychiatric practice at Carilion New River Valley Medical Center beginning in August 2019. Laura Taylor directed the relevant department. The two had a contentious relationship: Wang had refused to sign a noncompete agreement in September 2022, had reported various patient-care concerns to Taylor throughout 2022 and 2023, and had escalated concerns about allegedly unlawful practices to an authority at the Virginia Board of Nursing. Wang submitted a 90-day resignation notice by email on April 16, 2023. In August 2023, Taylor filed a report with the Virginia Department of Health Professions under Code § 54.1-2400.6, the statute governing mandatory reports concerning health professionals.

July 15, 2026

Virginia’s Vicarious-Liability Presumption Applies at Pleading Stage

by Lee E. Berlik

Several years ago, this blog covered Garnett v. Remedi SeniorCare of Virginia, LLC, 892 F.3d 140 (4th Cir. 2018), in which the Fourth Circuit held that an employer could not be held vicariously liable for a coworker’s crude and offensive remarks because they fell outside the scope of the speaker’s employment. The apparent lesson was that a Virginia employer is not a guarantor of everything its employees say, and that a defamation plaintiff who cannot connect the statement to the employee’s job responsibilities will not survive a motion to dismiss. A recent unpublished Fourth Circuit decision, Auckland v. Gilead Sciences, Inc., complicates that lesson. Applying a pleading-stage presumption that the Supreme Court of Virginia developed after Garnett, the court vacated the dismissal of a vicarious-liability defamation claim and, over a pointed dissent from Judge Wilkinson, held that the plaintiff’s complaint had pleaded sufficient facts to proceed.

Ian Auckland worked remotely from Southwest Virginia for Gilead Sciences, a California-based biopharmaceutical company, for more than nine years. In 2023, he applied for a preceptorship program associated with Gilead’s Key Accounts Team, a role viewed as a stepping-stone to a full-time position on the team. Hilary Zachry, a California employee who served as a mentor for the preceptorship program, allegedly favored other candidates. According to Auckland, Zachry falsely told a coworker that Auckland had said “I want to rip your panties off” during a brief conversation at a work conference in Nashville, and then directed that coworker to report the fabricated accusation to Gilead. Auckland was accepted into the program, but was soon investigated and terminated. He sued both Zachry and Gilead in the Western District of Virginia, asserting claims of defamation and defamation per se, and sought to hold Gilead vicariously liable for Zachry’s conduct.

June 27, 2026

Defamation Is Not Confined to Written or Spoken Words

by Lee E. Berlik

When we think of defamation, we typically think of words: a slanderous remark, a libelous article, a defamatory social media post. But in Hopkins v. Ryan, Record No. 1192-25-3 (Va. Ct. App. June 23, 2026), the Court of Appeals of Virginia reminded us that defamation can take forms far removed from the spoken or written word. In a published opinion by Judge Raphael, the court reversed the dismissal of a defamation claim based not on any statement in the conventional sense, but on a fabricated invoice. The court held that a false business document, doctored to be attributed to the plaintiff and published to a third party to destroy his professional reputation, can constitute actionable defamation under Virginia law.

The facts alleged in the amended complaint paint a picture of workplace sabotage. David Hopkins worked as a commission-only sales representative for Consolidated Electrical Distributors, Inc. (“CED”), an electrical wholesale-distribution company. Dan Ryan was his direct supervisor at CED’s Roanoke office. Hopkins had spent years building customer relationships and earning commissions, and one of his largest accounts was a client identified in the complaint as “Company C.” Hopkins had earned more than $100,000 in commissions from Company C and had secured its commitment to a $1.8 million apartment-development project — a deal that would have generated substantial additional commissions for him.

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).

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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August 4, 2024

Public Concern vs. Private Concern

by Lee E. Berlik

Virginia’s anti-SLAPP statute offers immunity against tort claims based on statements “regarding matters of public concern.” We know generally that matters of public concern are those considered to be subjects of “legitimate news interest” such as those “relating to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community.” (See City of San Diego, Cal. v. Roe, 543 U.S. 77, 83–84 (2004); Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011)). The boundaries of what, exactly, constitutes “legitimate” public interest in a particular statement are not well defined, however, so I was pleased to see the Virginia Court of Appeals take up the matter and lay out some guidance in the recent case of Rolofson v. Fraser.

Samuel Rolofson and Brittany Fraser are Army officers who dated briefly in 2017 while stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. After their relationship ended, Fraser complained to the military chain of command that Rolofson was harassing her with inappropriate text messages and that he had abused his authority by deleting from a security computer the name of another man he had accused Fraser of having an inappropriate relationship with. Rolofson’s chain of command conducted an investigation, held a hearing, and eventually issued a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand, finding that Rolofson had “demonstrated a complete lack of judgment and responsibility” and “discredited” himself. He sued Fraser for defamation.

April 25, 2024

Not Sure Whether a Particular Word is Defamatory? Check the Dictionary.

by Lee E. Berlik

As noted previously on this blog, if an employer falsely suggests to others that an employee was fired for cause when, in truth, the employee quit the job voluntarily, the employer may be liable for defamation. Similarly, when news outlets report on the separation of public figures from their places of employment, they need to be careful with the words they use. Nobody wants to open a newspaper and encounter a story about how they were forcibly removed from a position they voluntarily quit, leaving readers with the false impression that some sort of misconduct occurred. A recent Virginia case involved a news story reporting that a school superintendent was “ousted.” In examining whether a term like this could support a defamation action, the court relied primarily on dictionary definitions.

In Sroufe v. Scripps Media, Inc., Dr. William D. Sroufe, the former superintendent of Colonial Heights Public Schools, took issue with a news story that aired in February 2023 on WTVR/CBS6. The broadcast allegedly misrepresented the circumstances of his departure from the school system. According to the report, Sroufe was “ousted” due to allegedly covering up misconduct by a softball coach at the school. This narrative, he asserted, was not only damaging to his reputation but also blatantly false.

January 10, 2024

Context Helps Separate Fact From Opinion

by Lee E. Berlik

Defamation actions cannot be based on expressions of pure opinion because such statements are protected by the First Amendment. To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff needs to allege a false assertion of fact. Separating fact from opinion, however, is not always as clear-cut as one might expect. Courts have reached differing conclusions on whether words like “racist” and “unethical” state facts or merely personal opinions. The easiest way to distinguish fact from opinion is to ask whether the statement is capable of being proven true or false. If so, it’s likely a factual statement. (Statements of opinion can’t be proven true or false because they depend on the speaker’s personal, subjective viewpoint.) To do this, it’s necessary to determine exactly what “the statement” is. In other words, what, exactly, is the message the defendant has conveyed to others about the plaintiff that has caused (or is causing) an adverse effect on the plaintiff’s reputation? This is where it becomes necessary to examine the precise context in which the statement was made.

In Hyland v. Raytheon Tech. Servs. Co., 277 Va. 40, 48 (2009), the Virginia Supreme Court held that in analyzing whether a statement claimed to be defamatory is one of fact or opinion, “a court may not isolate one portion of the statement at issue from another portion of the statement” but must instead “consider the statement as a whole.” The court explained that to fully understand the meaning of the statement being communicated, it’s necessary to view the words claimed to be defamatory together with any accompanying statements and not to examine portions of a larger statement in isolation. Courts also need to consider the speaker, the audience, and the means or media used to communicate the message.

June 19, 2023

Accusations of Giving Preferential Treatment to Favored Vendors

by Lee E. Berlik

When does ordinary workplace criticism become actionable defamation? While there’s no hard and fast rule, the answer usually lies in the extent to which the criticism involves provably false factual assertions. Expressions of pure opinion are not actionable, so a performance review that merely contains negative assessments of an employee’s performance won’t support a libel suit absent the inclusion of express or implied falsehoods. An accusation that an employee is slow to pay vendors? Not defamatory, because “slow” is relative and means different things to different people. An accusation that the employee is difficult to deal with? Also not defamatory, because calling someone “difficult” doesn’t convey any actual facts about the employee susceptible of being proven false. (How do you define “difficult”?) What about an accusation that the employee played favorites with vendors and paid preferred vendors before paying disfavored vendors? According to a federal judge sitting in Harrisonburg, Virginia, that statement crosses the line into defamatory territory as it can be proven false at trial.

The case of Christine A. Thompson v. Rockingham County presents the following facts. Christine Thompson worked in the Children’s Services Act (CSA) office for Harrisonburg and Rockingham County from 2005 to February 2020. Initially serving as the CSA coordinator and later promoted to CSA manager, her responsibilities included overseeing daily operations, facilitating invoice payments, and supervising employees. Thompson did not have the authority to approve payments to vendors, but she oversaw the generation of purchase orders for approved services and the submission of invoices by vendors. Once submitted, invoices were reviewed and signed by the Department of Social Services before being returned to the CSA office for payment processing. Payments were expected to be issued within 45 days of invoice submission, and adherence to procedural requirements was crucial for vendors to receive payment.

January 30, 2023

Qualified Privilege Insufficient Basis for Pretrial Dismissal

by Lee E. Berlik

It’s never a good idea to slander another person, but in some circumstances a privilege may apply to a defamatory statement that exempts the statement from any libel or slander claims. Statements made on the witness stand in a legal proceeding, for example, are immune from defamation claims (even if they are false). The justice system is designed to sort out which witnesses are lying and which are telling the truth; it doesn’t permit an aggrieved individual to sue witnesses who offered unfavorable testimony during the trial. In other contexts, a “qualified” privilege may apply to the communication. In these situations, the privilege is not absolute and will be forfeited if abused. A qualified privilege generally attaches to communications between persons on a subject in which the persons share an interest or duty. For example, consider the employee performance review, where the person completing the review form and the person receiving it both share an interest or duty in the review being conducted. In situations like these, the reviewer is generally permitted–and expected–to include whatever negative feedback may be appropriate without having to worry about getting sued by the employee for defamation. However, this privilege is not absolute; a qualified privilege does not give the reviewer a license to maliciously defame another individual with impunity.

Defamatory words uttered with malice will not be protected by qualified privilege. This means that a plaintiff may often be able to pursue a defamation claim even when the claim is based on a statement made in a privileged context. A plaintiff can overcome the qualified privilege with clear and convincing evidence that the defendant made the statement with “malice” (not to be confused with “actual malice.”) Malice in this context can be shown in a variety of ways, such as a showing that (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. (See Cashion v. Smith, 286 Va. 327, 339 (2013)).