The Virginia Defamation Law Blog
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.
So the key difference between these two defamation cases was that the plaintiff was able to demonstrate malicious conduct in only one of them.
Massie v. Ulta Beauty
In Massie, the plaintiff, Rita Massie, was arrested and charged with grand larceny after an employee of Ulta Beauty mistakenly identified her as the perpetrator seen in a store surveillance video. The charges were later dismissed when police realized the woman in the video wasn’t Massie and that Massie had never even been inside an Ulta store.
Massie sued for defamation, arguing that Ulta’s employee falsely accused her to the police, damaging her reputation and causing emotional distress. The trial court sustained a demurrer and dismissed the case, holding that Ulta’s report to police was protected by qualified privilege and that Massie had failed to allege facts suggesting Ulta did not act in good faith. Even assuming Ulta got the identification wrong, there were no allegations of hostility, prior disputes, or any reason to believe the mistake was anything more than a mistaken judgment based on surveillance footage. Nor did Massie allege what, exactly, was said to the police or how Ulta had come to identify her by name. In short, the court held that the statement was protected by qualified privilege and that there were no allegations that the defendants did anything to abuse that privilege. Therefore, the case was dismissed.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal but on different grounds. It did not even reach the question of qualified privilege because it found the plaintiff failed to allege a prima facie case of defamation. Defamation liability requires a certain level of intent. Plaintiffs who are not public officials or public figures must show not only that the defendant made a false statement but “that the defendant either knew it to be false, or believing it to be true, lacked reasonable grounds for such belief, or acted negligently in failing to ascertain the facts on which the publication was based.” (See Opinion at 12). Massie failed to do this. According to her own complaint, neither Ulta nor its employee had any prior interactions with her. The pleading was thus insufficient to establish that the defendants made a false accusation knowingly or negligently.
Kidd v. Bazazan
In Kidd, by contrast, malice was both alleged and proven. There, the defendant, Matthew Kidd, sent an email to the Bedford County Sheriff alleging that “underage girls” were being flown into Smith Mountain Lake Airport, an airport owned by plaintiff Mohamad Bazazan, for “sex parties.” The FBI got involved and took the claim seriously enough to investigate but quickly closed the matter. Bazazan and the airport sued Kidd for defamation and the jury awarded $150,000 in combined damages.
As in the Massie case, this defamation claim was based on a false statement made to the police. The reason Bazazan won $150,000 while Massie got nothing has to do with the fact that unlike the Massie case, which involved an innocent mistake, Bazazan and Kidd had a long and acrimonious history, which supported the jury’s 
finding that the statement at issue was not an innocent mistake but an intentional smear campaign designed to hurt Bazazan.
Kidd lived near the airport owned and operated by Bazazan. The conflict began when Bazazan agreed to build a hangar at the airport to house an aircraft owned by Dan Dunkle, a former neighbor of Kidd. Kidd opposed the hangar, citing concerns about safety, air traffic, and noise. Kidd got increasingly vocal in his opposition, sometimes complaining to county officials twice a day. He accused Bazazan of engaging in economic crimes, of poisoning Kidd’s dog, and of planning to blow up the Smith Mountain Lake dam. Text messages showed he wanted “to piss [Bazazan] off,” “unleash hell” on Bazazan, and that he once proposed felling trees across the airport’s exit during a cookout to trap guests.
After hearing this evidence, the jury found that the sex-trafficking claim was knowingly false or made with reckless disregard for the truth and awarded $150,000 in damages. The trial court entered judgment based on the jury’s verdict.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed, emphasizing the evidence of actual malice. Unlike in Massie, the plaintiff in Kidd presented a wealth of evidence showing Kidd’s deep-seated animosity toward Bazazan. The court did not address the issue of qualified privilege directly. Rather, it held that Bazazan had proven malice sufficient to recover both compensatory and punitive damages (which would also be sufficient to defeat qualified privilege).
Qualified privilege is not a license to lie or to weaponize the criminal justice system against personal enemies. The law immunizes well-grounded, good-faith reports to the police, even if they are mistaken. Intentional smear campaigns, on the other hand, are not entitled to protection.