The Virginia Defamation Law Blog

February 29, 2020

Must Overcome Qualified Privilege When Suing Your Employer for Defamation

In Virginia, employers can fire their employees for any reason or no reason at all, subject to certain limited exceptions. Employers aren’t required to articulate a reason for letting go an employee (see Johnston v. William E. Wood & Assocs., 292 Va. 222, 225 (2016)), but they often do anyway. As you might expect, the employees getting fired don’t always agree with the reasons being offered for the termination. A common response of disgruntled employees is to sue their former employer not only for wrongful termination but for defamation as well, theorizing that their reputation was harmed as the result of false accusations made about them. This approach rarely succeeds.

In a ruling from earlier this month, a federal court threw out an employee’s defamation claim based primarily on two concepts: lack of publication, and qualified privilege. Publication refers to the requirement that an actionable statement be transmitted to some third person so as to be heard and understood by such person. Qualified privilege refers to the special protection afforded to defamatory statements made in certain contexts (like the context of a performance review or exit interview).

January 23, 2020

Political Commentary Protected By First Amendment

by Lee E. Berlik

Hey, all you politicians from around the country who would bring your defamation lawsuits here in Virginia because you’ve been told it’s a plaintiff-friendly jurisdiction: just because our anti-SLAPP laws may not be as robust as they are in some other states (and that may be about to change: see House Bill 759) doesn’t mean that the First Amendment doesn’t afford protection to political commentary and opinion. Even in Virginia, a person’s personal opinions regarding a politician or celebrity are immune from defamation claims, no matter how insulting or derogatory those opinions may be. You knew when you ran for office that there would be a lot of public discussion about your behavior; the occasional inadvertent factual error comes with the territory. Politicians are expected to have skin thick enough to withstand public criticism.

Not all of them do. Much has been written about the Virginia lawsuits filed by California Congressman Devin Nunes, but today I want to discuss Joseph D. Morrissey v. WTVR, LLC. Joe Morrissey previously served as the leading prosecutor for the City of Richmond, Virginia, and is a former member of the Virginia General Assembly. As such, he is a public figure. He filed a defamation lawsuit against WTVR, LLC d/b/a CBS 6 and its reporter, Mark Holmberg, based on this video segment it ran back in 2016. Morrissey claimed the video made him appear unfit to serve as mayor and portrayed him as a “stupid liar, who was a sex crazed maniac.” In the video, Holmberg refers to Morrissey as a “fool” and a “clown” and stated that the Virginia State Bar was “coming after him.” Morrissey demanded $1,350,000 in damages.

December 5, 2019

Wink Wink! Nudge Nudge! Say No More.

by Lee E. Berlik

Even without winking and nudging, defamatory statements can be communicated by innuendo just as clearly as they can by express statements. If you’re going to publish a “hit piece” about another person designed to damage that person’s reputation, you can’t escape defamation liability simply by being careful not to state directly what you are unambiguously expressing indirectly. Libel through innuendo does not enjoy any greater protection under the First Amendment than blatant libel. Defamation may be implied when an author intends for his audience to “read between the lines” while being careful not to make an express statement that is literally false.

I’ve written about defamation by implication before, but one case I haven’t yet covered is Steven D. Parker v. Lancaster County School Board, pending in the Richmond Division of the Eastern District of Virginia. The basic facts, according to the November 4th opinion, are essentially as follows. Dr. Parker is the former Superintendent of Lancaster County Public Schools. He claims he received consistently excellent performance reviews during his tenure. Towards the end of his contract, the School Board Chair instructed Dr. Parker to hire more African-American administrators, even if they were less qualified than white applicants. Dr. Parker pushed back against this idea as he considered it an ill-advised “race-based hiring quota.” The School Board ultimately decided not to renew Dr. Parker’s contract, for reasons Dr. Parker alleges have to do with his refusal to provide preferential treatment to unqualified African-American job applicants and his participation in a racial-harassment investigation into one of the Board members.

November 9, 2019

The Small-Group Exception to the “Of and Concerning” Test

by Lee E. Berlik

To be actionable in Virginia, defamatory statements must be about the person who is filing the lawsuit. A plaintiff can’t successfully bring a defamation action based on a false statement that doesn’t expressly or impliedly refer to him or her, and in a manner clear enough to communicate that reference to others. This is the “of and concerning” element that every action for libel or slander requires. When the false statement at issue concerns a group of people rather than an individual, a question arises as to whether the group’s members have been defamed. The general rule is that statements that broadly malign an organization as a whole do not necessarily defame the organization’s individual members. However, when the organization is small enough, the small-group theory postulates that a defamatory statement about the small group could be reasonably expected to harm the reputations of every individual member, whether or not they are identified in the statement, and that such statements should be treated as “of and concerning” each individual group member.

If a statement’s “language…is directed towards a comparatively small or restricted group of persons, then any member thereof may sue.” (See Ewell v. Boutwell, 138 Va. 402, 410 (1924)). How small does the group have to be to qualify for the small-group exception to the of-and-concerning requirement? That’s anyone’s guess. Courts around the country typically apply the doctrine to groups of up to around 25-50 members, but each case is going to be different. Courts will look to factors such as the size of the group, whether the statement attacks the group as a whole or some subset thereof, and whether the group is prominent in the community in which the statement was published. The key issue is whether a reasonable person hearing the defamatory statement about the group would likely interpret it as referring to all its individual members.

September 25, 2019

Seek Remittitur if Jury’s Award Is Grossly Excessive

by Lee E. Berlik

As I wrote on this blog last month, if a trial judge gives the jury faulty instructions in a defamation case regarding liability issues, the parties are entitled to a new trial. Juries are there to weigh evidence and determine the facts, not decide what the law should be. Today, I’m writing about the appropriate remedy when a jury awards the plaintiff an outrageously large sum of monetary damages after having been instructed properly regarding the law. Sometimes juries will understand what the trial judge has asked them to do but for reasons such as passion, prejudice, sympathy, or simply because of a rush to reach a consensus and go home, decide to award an amount of money having no bearing on the injuries actually suffered. When this happens, the unlucky defendant can ask for remittitur.

“Remittitur” is a process by which the trial court orders a new trial unless the plaintiff accepts a reduction in an excessive jury award. Compensatory damages must bear a reasonable relationship to the damages disclosed by the evidence. Although a judge may not arbitrarily substitute her opinion for that of the jury, she has both the power and the duty to correct a verdict so excessive as to “shock the conscience” of the court. (See Hogan v. Carter, 226 Va. 361, 372 (1983)). Under Virginia Code § 8.01-383.1, a trial court may give the plaintiff the option of remittitur of the excessive verdict in lieu of a new trial, permitting him or her to accept judgment for a reduced sum. In setting this reduced amount, the court should consider factors in evidence relevant to a reasoned evaluation of the damages, and set the damages at an amount that bears a “reasonable relation to the damages disclosed by the evidence.” (See Bassett Furniture, 216 Va. 897, 911-12 (1976)).

August 22, 2019

Juries Cannot Base Defamation Verdicts on Statements of Opinion

by Lee E. Berlik

Statements of pure opinion are protected by the First Amendment and are not actionable as defamation. Whether an alleged defamatory statement is one of fact or opinion is a question of law to be decided by the court, not the jury. It is also for the trial judge (and not the jury) to determine whether a particular statement may support a defamation action. At the same time, however, statements alleged to be defamatory must be evaluated in context, along with all accompanying statements, and cannot be considered in isolation. (See Hyland v. Raytheon Tech. Servs. Co., 277 Va. 40, 48 (2009)). This is all black-letter defamation law, but courts have struggled with the question of how exactly to instruct a jury considering a defamation claim based on a statement that includes both statements of fact and expressions of opinion. Today we have a new opinion offering some guidance. (Full disclosure: my firm was involved in the case).

Handberg v. Goldberg involved a dispute between a Loudoun County resident and The Morgan Center, a provider of educational advocacy services. The Morgan Center (run by Dr. Felicia Goldberg) kept Mr. Handberg’s debit card on file and would seek authorization from him prior to charging it for various services. Billing disagreements arose and Handberg eventually sent an email to his son’s school informing them that Dr. Goldberg no longer represented his son and including various details about the parties’ billing dispute. Dr. Goldberg sued Mr. Handberg for defamation based on this email, identifying 11 specific statements she believed were defamatory. Among those 11 statements were these three:

August 20, 2019

Does Absolute Judicial Privilege Apply to Employer Investigations?

by Lee E. Berlik

In Virginia, some statements enjoy absolute immunity from defamation claims. Such statements are said to be protected by an absolute privilege. The most common of the absolute privileges is the so-called “judicial privilege,” which protects statements made in connection with and relevant to a judicial proceeding. The doctrine is typically applied to statements made by witnesses testifying in court, or to scandalous statements made in pleadings or motions filed with a court in connection with a judicial proceeding. For example, if Mrs. Smith files for divorce against Mr. Smith on the ground that he allegedly had an affair with the couple’s au pair, Mr. Smith won’t be able to sue Mrs. Smith for defamation even if the allegation about him and the au pair is completely false; the allegation was made in a judicial proceeding, so it’s absolutely privileged.

There seems to be a trend towards broadening this privilege by expanding the scope of what it means for a statement to have been made “in connection with” a judicial proceeding. In 2012, The Virginia Supreme Court held in Mansfield v. Bernabei that communications made outside of court but preliminary to a proposed judicial proceeding will be absolutely privileged from defamation liability where (1) the statement is made preliminary to a proposed judicial proceeding; (2) the statement is “material, relevant or pertinent” to the proceeding; (3) the proceeding is contemplated in good faith and is under serious consideration; and (4) the communication is disclosed only to persons having an interest in the proposed proceeding. The following year, a federal court sitting in Virginia held that once litigation is filed, the absolute judicial privilege could extend to statements made outside of court, even if made to persons without an interest in the litigation. And now this year, we have another federal case further extending the privilege to cover statements made in the course of a human-resources investigation of an employee’s complaint.

August 13, 2019

Statement Implying Lack of Honesty May Be Defamatory Per Se

by Lee E. Berlik

For a statement to be actionable as defamation per quod, it must have resulted in damages to the plaintiff. (See Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Macione, 230 Va. 137 (1985)). In actions for libel and slander in Virginia, a plaintiff must prove the quantum of his damages unless the words at issue are considered defamatory per se. To qualify as defamation per se, the words claimed to be defamatory must fall into one of these four categories:

Those which impute to a person the commission of some criminal offense involving moral turpitude, for which the party, if the charge is true, may be indicted and punished;
Those which impute that a person is infected with some contagious disease, where if the charge is true, it would exclude the party from society;
Those which impute to a person unfitness to perform the duties of an office or employment of profit, or want of integrity in the discharge of the duties of such an office or employment; or
Those which prejudice such person in his or her profession or trade.

July 20, 2019

Trial Courts Must Screen Out Defective Defamation Cases

by Lee E. Berlik

The Virginia Supreme Court has had enough of defamation verdicts based on subjective statements that are relative in nature and depend largely on the speaker’s viewpoint. Such statements are statements of opinion, not fact, and cannot support a defamation verdict. A few years ago, the Court made it very clear that “ensuring that defamation suits proceed only upon statements which actually may defame a plaintiff, rather than those which merely may inflame a jury to an award of damages, is an essential gatekeeping function of the court.” (See Webb v. Virginian-Pilot Media Companies). This means that if a plaintiff files an action for libel or slander based solely on a statement of opinion, the trial court’s duty is to dismiss the case at the outset.

Of course, this doesn’t always happen, as illustrated by the recent case of William D. Sroufe v. Muriel Tamera Waldron. Mr. Sroufe is the division superintendent for Patrick County Public Schools. Ms. Waldron is a former principal of Stuart Elementary School in Patrick County. Mr. Sroufe was unhappy with Ms. Waldron’s performance, particularly in connection with her administration of Virginia’s Alternative Assessment Program (“VAAP“) for students with learning disabilities. He decided to ask the school board to reassign her to a teaching position, explaining his reasoning as follows in a letter he gave to her:

You failed to ensure that the [Individualized Education Program] Teams understand the [VAAP] participation criteria and apply them appropriately when considering students with disabilities for the VAAP. Your actions will result in students being required to take [Standards of Learning] assessments who, under a correct interpretation of the criteria, should not have been required to do so.

May 27, 2019

Even Vague Suggestion of Criminal Conduct May Be Defamatory Per Se

by Lee E. Berlik

Defamatory statements falling into certain categories deemed particularly damaging to one’s reputation are considered defamatory “per se” and may be compensable even without proof of reputational harm. False accusations of morally reprehensible criminal activity are a common example of this “per se” form of defamation. As the Virginia Supreme Court has put it, defamatory words will be considered defamation per se when they “impute to a person the commission of some criminal offense involving moral turpitude, for which the party, if the charge is true, may be indicted and punished.” (Tronfeld v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 272 Va. 709, 713 (2006)). One thing that remains unclear, however, is the degree of specificity required before a statement will be deemed defamatory per se. Must the statement describe specific conduct, or is it sufficient to merely characterize unspecified conduct as criminal in nature? Must a specific criminal offense be identified? There doesn’t yet seem to be a consensus on these questions. The latest Virginia court to deal with them allowed a case to proceed on the basis of very vague allegations.

Here’s what happened in the case of Frances J. Belisle v. Laura Baxter, according to the opinion. Frances brought two counts of defamation per se against Baxter, a police officer with the City of Hopewell, arising out of her arrest at Hopewell High School for disorderly conduct. The police were at the high school at its request to provide security at a school event in which Frances’ minor daughters were participants. They set up a barricade of tables to form a controlled entry point to a hallway in the school. When Frances approached the tables with her 9-year-old daughter, seeking to escort her to a classroom, she was initially told that only the daughter could enter. The police eventually decided it was OK to allow the parent to come in, but when Frances later observed Officer Baxter stopping another mother from entering the hallway, she decided to intervene.