Is it defamatory to tell someone that they have a lack of professionalism and integrity? In the U.S. could I be found liable for defamation for telling persons A, B, and C that person A "lacks professionalism and integrity?"
This particular statement ("Person A lacks professionalism and integrity") may be protected because it isn't sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proved true or false. Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. established that the test is whether "a reasonable factfinder could conclude that the statements [...] imply [a defamatory assertion]". The court mentioned that "loose, figurative, or hyperbolic language" would negate the impression that "[the speaker] was seriously maintaining [the defamatory claim]. The court also considered "the article's general tenor". It also emphasized that the statement was "sufficiently factual that it is susceptible of being proved true or false". Said in other ways: Is the statement "sufficiently factual to be susceptible of being proved true or false"? Can the statement "reasonably be interpreted as stating actual facts about an individual"?
was there a good way to publicly shame Bob, and prevent him from getting his next job, without breaking Carol’s confidence? Apparently not. The conclusion that Bob's violations of company policy are short of breaking any laws leaves little to no reason for publicly shaming him. Details on the company policy, the facts, and the statements might make a difference, but your description is generic in that regard and would require us to speculate on what they could be. Could there have been grounds for a lawsuit? It largely depends on the terms of the publications, their veracity &amp; import, and --if false or unfounded-- their effect on Bob's prospects and/or whether the statements are defamatory per se. Would a truth defense for a statement such as, “We completed an investigation of Bob for professional misconduct,” require disclosing the investigation? Yes. A defendant has the burden to prove the [affirmative] defense(s) on which he intends to premise his position. Note that the statement “We completed an investigation of Bob for professional misconduct” in and of itself is not really a truth defense because it is inconclusive as to whether Bob was found to have incurred misconduct. The sole fact that Bob was investigated does not justify imputing to him disreputable conduct. Would a defense that the investigation gave them legitimate reasons to believe that the insinuation they made is true require them to disclose it? Yes. Bob is entitled to gather from the defendant the bases for the latter's allegations. Otherwise defamers would systematically elude their liability by sticking to generic allegations only. Are there other good defenses that could have gotten the lawsuit dismissed as frivolous? That requires us to speculate because we are given no details about the underlying events, Bob's pleadings, the evidence obtained during discovery, and so forth. That being said, a prevailing defense does not imply that the lawsuit is frivolous. Would the identities of the witnesses have been redacted? No. The fact that Bob did not break any laws suggests that the matter does not warrant measures akin to witness protection. Nor does your description reflect that the communications are protected by some privilege. Is it credible that Ethan had a good legal reason to keep this “in the family” for Carol’s sake? That is unanswerable because, inter alia, it is not about the law, it is unclear what exactly &quot;Carol's sake&quot; entails, and the substance of the company's other scandals as well as Ethan's reason(s) are unspecified. Ethan's &quot;good legal reason&quot; does not necessarily have to protect or advance &quot;Carol's sake&quot;.
That book provides advice on legal writing; it is not a source of rules for legal writing. Rather than repeatedly identifying themselves using their full name, parties customarily refer to themselves in the third person, e.g., &quot;The defendant refused to waive his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial.&quot; In practice, though, pro se litigants regularly refer to themselves in the first person, and there is no formal consequence for this.
Financial institutions in the US are subject to regulations that restrict what sorts of things non-licensed employees can talk about with clients and advice they can give about structuring accounts and payments in ways that might avoid triggering money laundering alarms. I think this employee was being cautious about getting into a gray area and phrased the reason they couldn't talk about it poorly. The reason they were restricted from giving you an answer could be a legality, but not necessarily because they are giving you legal advice.
We may soon have a more definitive answer. A Grand Junction, Colorado newspaper is suing a politician for calling it "fake news", and the resolution of that case and the hypothetical that you propose would turn on the same legal principle. It is highly unlikely that such a lawsuit would prevail, because "fake news" probably doesn't constitute libel per se, because the comment could be construed as hyperbole or as a statement of opinion (neither of which are actionable), and even potentially, because a "speech and debate clause" defense under the state constitution might apply (depending upon the context in which the statement was made by the politician). The context of the particular tweet cited generally defines specified organizations as "the FAKE NEWS media" rather than accusing them of any particular instance of making a false statement, so it is probably an opinion or hyperbole. But, if the statement were made knowing it was false or with reckless disregard as to truth or falsity, and if the term "fake news" in the context in which it was used could be legitimately construed the imply a statement of fact which is not true, it wouldn't be impossible for the lawsuit to succeed, and depending upon the context of the statement, it could have such an implication. A suit against Trump could also implicate Presidential immunity doctrines which are more robust than immunity doctrines for other public officials, particularly if the "fake news" comment could be construed as part of the official duties of the President (for which there is absolute immunity) as opposed to his unofficial duties. The immunity question is a closer one than the question on the merits of defamation law about which there is much more case law to flesh out what is and isn't covered.
Willfully telling an untruth or making a misrepresentation under oath is perjury; the reason you do so or the substance of it is irrelevant. It is the act of perjury itself that is an offense and led to the impeachment.
Can I legally put pressure on the company to get a compensation? (e.g. write an article explaining what they did) Writing an article about being fired doesn't have anything to do with the fact that writing that article is legal or not. Sure, you can write an article - or likely an opinion piece - about being fired for what you say are unjust reasons and hope it results in pressure on your old company. This happens all the time in the press; that's what Op-ed and opinion pieces - and also "objective" journalism - do every day. A big corporation isn't going to care about some bad PR from a disgruntled freelancer. Bad PR is not legal pressure. So consider the answer to your last question Can I be sued for warning of a potential crowdfunding scam? which is an outline of defamation law. If you're not very careful (and the publication's editor, if there is one and if they are not well-versed in defamation law), you will defame someone at the company (publish provably false facts) in your article and they (and/or the compnay) can take action against you. And self-publishing a piece has even greater risks of defamation, because it's likely you don't know the boundaries of defamation. Defamation is complex (especially in an international context) and turns on many details of the facts, how they were published, and more. But: how much money do you have to defend yourself against a libel suit? Another point to consider is this: even if you don't clearly libel someone at the company, the company can still take action against you. They can retaliate against bad PR with a lawsuit. You say they have lawyers and can afford it, and you're alone. Can you afford to defend yourself? Is it worth suing them (they're US-based), considering the cost or the legal action would not come cheap (I guess)? As a side note I am based in Europe (I avoid putting the country here, as a means to protect my privacy) That's entirely up to you. No one here will advise you about that. Only you can make that decision, or your lawyer can advise you on that. Talk to an attorney who might take on such an action, and one involving international jurisdictions (a US state and the unnamed European - possibly EU - country). Aside from potential libel, the other important aspect is to determine what legally can be done internationally in terms of defamation, both with any potential action you take and what actions the company can take against you. That will be determined by different laws and international agreements between the US (and possibly the state) and the unnamed (possibly EU) European country. The minor aspect of your dispute is your termination and the employment contract: The company engaging with the contractor has the right to terminate the agreement after several warnings have been issues.... However, no FORMAL warning has ever been issued. That's legally vague enough to allow the company to fire you at any time. (Update from comments: Virginia is a "Right to Work" state which means that the employer may fire the employee for any reason without cause unless the employee is being fired for being a member of a protected class, i.e.race, religion, sex, etc.) Again, international jurisdictions come into play concerning labor laws. Can you find a lawyer who will take on an international labor dispute?
You Have No Recourse You have no recourse, at least to the extent that the people communicating to your employer point out the particular Facebook posts that were made or accurately summarize or paraphrase them (if the content of the Facebook posts was misrepresented to the employer that would be a different story). A factually truthful statement (e.g., "McGovern made a Facebook post at this link which you ought to look at") is absolutely privileged from legal liability under the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (assuming that you are talking about a U.S. case). The only exceptions would be when (1) the information provided is false and the person providing the tip has the appropriately standard of intent1 in providing the false statement (which can be actionable as defamation or intentional interference with contract as the DJ suing Taylor Swifts alleges in the Mueller v. Taylor Swift trial pending right now), or (2) the person providing the tip was someone who owed you a duty of confidentiality (e.g. your lawyer or psychiatrist), but that duty applies only to confidential communications between you and that person in most cases, and hence not to Facebook posts. Also, whether your own statements on Facebook were true, false or neither (e.g. statements of opinion) is irrelevant to the culpability or liability of the people providing the tip to your employer, so long as their description of your posts made to the employer were substantially accurate or to the extent that they were inaccurate were accompanied by a means by which the employer could determine what you actually said without relying on their second hand account. 1 To the extent that you are not a public figure and this is not a matter of public concern, even a negligent misrepresentation about what you actually wrote on Facebook, that is not a statement of opinion and is not accompanied by a reference allowing someone to confirm the accuracy of the statement at the source, could give rise to legal liability on the part of the person giving the tip. The standard of intent is the higher "actual malice" threshold for statements on matters of public concern, statements by media defendants and statements about public figures. But, there is nothing in the question to suggest that the tip given was in any way inaccurate. This Does Not Legally Constitute Harassment This is not harassment in a legal sense, even if it may have been an unkind thing to do on the part of the person doing it done with a specific and malicious desire on the person providing the tip to harm you. This is a natural consequence of you saying something on the Internet, which is forever. If your employer doesn't like true things that you say whether or not they relate to your job, if you are an employee at will you can be fired for it. It isn't absolutely impossible for factually true statements to constitute harassment, in a legal sense, but in those cases, it is the frequency and character of the communications, rather than their content or intended recipient, that make them harassing. For example, if the person providing the tip sent an email about that tip every five minutes for several days to every email address at your employer, causing your employer to find that it was just too disruptive to the employer's business to keep you on the payroll, that might be harassment, but that would have nothing to do with the content of the message provided in that case. Similarly, if someone screamed and yelled their statement over a loudspeaker every time you tried to tutor someone, that might be harassment, again, without regard to the content of what they were saying. In those cases, the "time, place and manner" exception to laws limiting the freedom of speech would apply. Could An Employer Take Employment Action Based On These Posts? There are a couple of states (Wyoming and Colorado, at least) which prohibit employers for taking employment actions against employees for lawful off the job conduct, despite the fact that otherwise, the default rule of law is that an employer can normally treat an employee at will (which the vast majority of employees are) as the employer deems fit. But, even then, liability is limited to the employer and not the person providing the tip. And, even in those states, off duty conduct can sometimes be considered by employers when it reflects directly on your fitness and ability to do your job when you are on the job, which a post about mathematics made by a math tutor very well might. Some high level employees with written contracts, career government employees with civil service protections, and almost all unionized employees can only be fired or disciplined on the job when the higher standard of "for cause" employment action is met, which posting something true on Facebook would not normally be. But, in the "at will" employment world, anything you say can and will be held against you even if it is entirely true. But, again, even if the employer misuses the information that the employer receives, that doesn't mean that someone who provided truthful information to your employer has any legal responsibility whatsoever to you or that the person providing the tip has done anything legally wrong in any way. For the most part, even if every word of your Facebook post was 100% true and accurate, outside the couple of states mentioned, you can be fired for posting it anyway if you are an employee at will. For example, suppose that your employer thinks that the Kumon method of teaching mathematics is a horrible method of instruction, and you post Kumon method exercises or explanations on your Facebook page (assume to avoid going on tangents that you had express permission from the copyright holder to do so). You could still be fired by your employer for posting that on Facebook in the vast majority of states. A Footnote on Internet Age Defamation Jurisdiction The usual rule is that a U.S. Defendant can be sued for defamation or similar torts where a statement is intentionally published to by the person being sued. In the case of a media defendant, or someone suing over a post made on Facebook, that could be any place in the world in many cases. But, while the geographic location of your Facebook post may be unclear, the geographic location of your employer to whom the statement you are concerned about being communicated was made, is not. Any harm done to you was done by communications to a single "legal" person who is legally located at a particular place in a single state, so the law of the state in which your employer is located (Washington State, U.S.A.) would govern, although there would also be an argument to looking to the law of the place where the person making the statement was located when they made the statement (which, it appears, would also be Washington State in your fact pattern). When someone in the U.S. communicates something to someone outside the U.S. that does not have the same level of protections for free speech that the U.S. does, there are federal statutes that provide that a judgment obtained there is not enforceable in the United States.