Can you be sued for publishing this negative review of a contractor? Suppose that a homeowner, Bob, had a contractor do some work in his attic. There was a fire safe in the attic with a couple thousand dollars in old coins. After the contractor left, Bob went into the attic and found that the fire safe had been broken open and the money was gone. When confronted, the contractor denied taking it. The only evidence that the contractor, specifically, broke into the safe was that it was discovered to be broken into shortly after the contractor left. After Bob went to the police and was told that it was his word against the contractor's, he posted a negative review online recounting the facts. The review didn't directly say that the contractor stole the money, just that no one else was in the attic, no one else knew the money was there, and the money was gone after he left. Assume that Bob is telling the truth as he believes it. Does the contractor have a valid claim against Bob for defamation (or any other claim)?
Can you be sued for publishing a negative review of a contractor Yes, because the import of your review suggests that the contractor stole the coins. See Bellemead, LLC v. Stoker, 631 S.E.2d 693, 695 (2006): a court looks to &quot;the plain import of the words spoken&quot; in order to ascertain whether the words constitute slander per se. [..]. To be slander per se, the words &quot;are those which are recognized as injurious on their face — without the aid of extrinsic proof. (citations omitted, quotation marks in original). Even prefacing your narrative with language such as &quot;I think&quot; or &quot;in my opinion&quot; might not suffice to preempt that import. See Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 18-19 (1990): If a speaker says, &quot;In my opinion John Jones is a liar,&quot; he implies a knowledge of facts which lead to the conclusion that Jones told an untruth. Even if the speaker states the facts upon which he bases his opinion, if those facts are either incorrect or incomplete, or if his assessment of them is erroneous, the statement may still imply a false assertion of fact. Simply couching such statements in terms of opinion does not dispel these implications; and the statement, &quot;In my opinion Jones is a liar,&quot; can cause as much damage to reputation as the statement, &quot;Jones is a liar.&quot; Accordingly, you will need evidence that supports the conjectures you portrayed in the review. In this regard, the police's response suggests that you have no evidence with which you could avail yourself of the defense of truth. The contractor's position would be reinforced if the narrative in your review omits the police's response. That is because your decision to withhold that information tends to deprive the contractor of the benefit of the [readers'] doubt.
Can a statement of one's beliefs constitute defamation if those beliefs can't be proven true? You might think that it is impossible to prove what's going on in your mind. But this is done all the time. Thoughts can be inferred from words and actions. For example, theft requires an intent to permanently deprive someone of property. If someone hides merchandise under their shirt and proceeds to the exit, there's generally not a reasonable doubt about whether they intended in their mind to steal it. Defamation laws vary by state. However, the First Amendment sets a baseline that all states must follow. Defamation requires a false fact. Pure opinion is not defamation. However, it is possible to defame via a statement which is an opinion, if that opinion implies undisclosed facts which are false. If you say that you "believe" the companies are deceptive, this clearly implies you know something that makes you believe that. You can get around this by disclosing the entire factual basis for your opinion. If you say that the New York Giants are deceptive because their stadium is actually located in New Jersey, that's not defamation, because people can judge for themselves whether that's actually deceptive. But if the team was actually located in New York, you could be liable. Would we still have some potential burden of proof The burden of proof is on the plaintiff, but it's only preponderance of the evidence in most cases, meaning the jury just needs to find it 50.001% likely that you are liable. But if the plaintiff in a defamation case is considered a "public figure" the standard of proof is raised, and they must prove by "clear and convincing evidence" that you acted with "actual malice" (which more or less means that you didn't actually believe what you were saying.) According to this paper it's an open question as to whether a corporation can be a public figure (although I don't know if their analysis is still valid since it's from 2001); the answer might depend on which circuit you are in, and even if you know how your circuit has decided the matter, the Supreme Court might rule the other way. And if your case goes all the way to the Supreme Court, you're going to be paying a lot of legal fees over the course of many years. You should also know that even if it's not defamation, you might not be off the hook. There's something called "tortious interference of business". If you're going to literally have people stand in front of businesses to try to drive their customers away from them and to you, I would highly suggest you get a lawyer from your area to determine whether and how you can legally do this.
Typically in defamation law, claims made persuiant to litigation are not defamatory, since they are going to be tested for validity if the case goes to trial. I'm not familiar with any differences in what is generally done in settlements between the U.K. and the U.S., but since both are Common Law countries, and Settlements are very common in civil proceedings in the U.S., it's a good start. Generally a settlemant can occur anytime before the verdict of the case is rendered, although usually it will happen after preliminary hearings during the Discovery phase. In the U.S., Discovery is very broad and one need not prove that the requested items contain evidence but might contain evidence. This means that, for example, you could request a substantial amount of e-mail records from the opposing party because somewhere on the company e-mail server, there might be something to help your case. And even if after you sift through the emails and find no smoking guns related to your case, you could find some dirty laundry that's unrelated but still damning... if not more so than the initial case. Many people, especially big compainies, would rather just give the ex-employee some what he/she wants, if it means they don't get to see the proverbial man behind the curtain. Additionally the practice might fall into a legally gray area of the law that, if it reaches trial, could hurt the company or even the industry if a judge rules against the company, effectively saying that this gray area is now definately illegal. Better to eat the loss of capital with the settling out of court than to take the much larger hit of the buisness practice being illegalized all together. Typically in settlements, both parties agree to terms and sign a contract. While the whole of the terms are never discussed, almost all include that the plaintiff will drop the case and never bring the matter to court again and that both parties will sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) meaning that they won't discuss the rest of the settlement terms with anyone not party to them. If the plaintiff does break the NDA, the defendant can sue for breech of contract and recover at the least the monitary compensation they awarded in the settlement. Conversely, if the respondent breaks the NDA, the plaintiff can refile their initial suit with the addition of breech of contract (and this time it will get to court... and all the dirty laundry sees the harsh light of day.). While the respondent in a settled case can possibly sue for defamation if the plaintiff said the respondent did what the initial suit claimed they did (legally, it was never proven or disproven), or they were guilty (again, since no verdict was reached at trial, no guilt was established), the breech of contract is a much more airtight case and doesn't open up discovery to the respondent's cupability in the settled case (since the breech is about discussing the settled case at all, not the validity of the accusations of the settled case). Typically they would not go this route because then it opens the can of worms the settlement was trying to keep a lid on.
It depends on what state this is. In Washington state, there is a form that sellers must fill out, and section 3 addresses sewer connections. This matter could have been disclosed – the allowed answers are &quot;yes; no; don't know&quot; (or NA). These are sellers disclosures, and Zillow / Redfin are free to be unreliable (I personally know that they are wrong about square footage). A real estate agent also doesn't become liable for being misinformed. Assuming your state has this or analogous question, &quot;No&quot; means that you were told (doesn't matter if you didn't notice it), and &quot;Don't know&quot; means you're gambling. Let's say that the answer was &quot;Yes&quot;. Still, you can't necessarily sue (and win): you would have to prove misrepresentation (fraud or negligence) and not innocent error. You could do this by, for instance, proving that seller had the septic tank cleaned out some years earlier. Perhaps an action against buyer's inspector is possible, since that's nominally what they might have been hired to find out. But that is only true if checking the sewer connection can reasonably be considered part of the deal, so you have to look at the contract with the inspector (and the inspector's report).
Is there any sort of implied expiration date for a contractor's completion for medium size contractor jobs (&lt; $10k)? Absent a provable deadline, the question would be whether the delay is reasonable (or habitual) under the circumstances. The contractor's presumption that he can do whatever he wants regarding unspecified aspects of a contract is inaccurate. Those matters can still be decided on the basis of contract law and/or under principles of equity. See also the Restatement (Second) of Contracts, which is frequently cited by U.S. courts, at §235(2) and §243 regarding non-performance of a contract. Will my verbal complete-by date hold up in lieu of any written complete-by date? It depends on each party's credibility. Proving that he essentially ignored your follow-up requests will make it harder for him to credibly refute your assertion about the verbal deadline. In case none of your follow-up efforts (or none of his responses) are in writing or if he denies that you repeatedly called him, you might want to subpoena his phone service provider --if the matter goes to court-- and file as evidence the resulting production of records.
It might or it might not be fraud. The outcome will depend on how the facts and evidence are interpreted at trial. A more general version of this question is: If two parties discuss and orally agree to X; then sign a contract that states they agree to Y, what are the parties bound to? X? Y? Or something else? In your version, X is a fraudulent statement. And Y is an obfuscated writing. One party will argue fraud. The other will argue not fraud on the basis that all the facts were disclosed in writing. The party alleging fraud will carry the burden of proof. The standard of proof will be preponderance of evidence (more than 50%). Generally speaking, written evidence outweighs oral evidence if not accompanied by substantiating facts. Substantiating facts could be: emails or other written correspondence, a prior history or pattern of making false claims to others regarding this investment, the respective behavior of the parties after the agreement was made or anything else that corroborates the oral testimony presented at trial.
This is one of the things Martha Stewart was convicted of. 18 USC 1001 is the US federal law requiring truthfulness. That statute forbids you to falsify, conceal, or cover up a material fact. One limitation on how broad this law is, is that it has to be a matter "within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States". If your neighbor is an FBI agent and he asks if you're the one who broke his window, and you lie, that's not a federal matter. Another limitation is that the lying has to be material. The essential part of the law is subsection (a). Subsection (b) then states an exception: (b) Subsection (a) does not apply to a party to a judicial proceeding, or that party’s counsel, for statements, representations, writings or documents submitted by such party or counsel to a judge or magistrate in that proceeding. Then you also owe a lesser duty of truthfulness to the legislature. Taking note of US. v. Yermian, it is not required that the person you lie to be a federal officer. Yermian lied to his employer, who was a defense contractor, and the fact that the relevant form was submitted to the government for scrutiny is what made it a matter in federal jurisdiction. Comparing the wording of 1001 to the perjury statute, the operative expression for perjury involves statements "which he does not believe to be true", we can see that the perjury statute requires telling the literal truth (see Bronston v. US), which allows so-called lies of omission (of a particular subtype: much more could be said about that). In contrast the lying statute forbids both literally false statements and concealing of the truth. I don't have cases at my fingertips that indicate how broad your truthful answers have to be, for example if you think the FBI is trying to put away a friend and ask you about what he did on June 14, and you know that he did a bad thing on June 13, would it be lying in the relevant sense to conceal that fact which they didn't ask about. [ADDENDUM] A session of perusing cases has led to a tiny bit of further information. A literal reading of the statute says that you are in violation of the law if you falsify a fact (sloppy epistemology, unless it refers just to altering records and evidence), or conceal a fact, and the courts recognise this as a fundamental division. As for falsifying, the way that has been applied is to refer to cases where the accused makes a statement which asserts something that he knows to be untrue. Thus, saying "No" to a question when the truth is "Yes" is a violation. A propos concealment, in US v. Diogo 320 F.2d 898 the court states that False representations, like common law perjury, require proof of actual falsity; concealment requires proof of wilful nondisclosure by means of a 'trick, scheme or device.' This case is pre-Bronston so there is mixing of concepts from perjury law and lying law, which would not happen now, but we can steering clear of their perjury citations. The crucial fact is that accused(s) were technically married in New York, for immigration purposes, and they were accused of a 1001 violation for having indicated that they were married. Part of the government's case was that such a marriage is not valid, and the court rejected that conclusion. The government's second prong was to maintain that the court "should affirm appellant's convictions on a theory of concealment", and this too the court rejected, saying "proof of their ulterior motives in marriage would not be tantamount to proof of willful and knowing concealment of these material facts". What they said on the forms was literally true, and they did not have a duty to volunteer information that they probably knew the government was interested in. Contrarily in a later case, US v. Zalman 870 F.2d 1047 we are told that the underlying purpose of a marriage is a material fact which bears upon the validity of the marriage, and that any false or fraudulent misrepresentation regarding the actual purpose of a marriage in order to gain status as a resident of the United States can be punished under 18 U.S.C.A. § 1001 so you have to be more truthful than the literal truth standard. There are also circumstances where there is an independent duty to give information, such as reporting income to the IRS. In US v. Hernando Ospina 798 F.2d 1570 the court maintained It is clear that in order to support a section 1001 concealment conviction there must be a legal duty to disclose the facts the defendant was convicted of concealing citing US v. Tobon-Builes 706 F.2d 1092, where again there was a legal duty to report "existence, origin, and transfer of approximately $185,200 in cash". In other words, it is not clear what information you are allowed to not volunteer when asked a question in a federal matter.
The customers are able to leave, so there's no reason it could be a crime. Even if they weren't able to operate the lock themselves, they are presumably able to leave by asking a staff member. There is no way this could be remotely considered false imprisonment. Depending on the layout and size of the store and presence/lack of other fire exits, this might violate fire safety regulations.