Watch what you send to your brokers, it could land you in legal hot water.
Defamation lawyers are reminding workers to take care with their internal communication in light of a defamation court case in Australia.
The case centred on a staff email, sent by a managing director about the high levels of employee lateness and absenteeism.
It stated that in one month alone there had been 21 latecomers, 24 sick days and 26 days of holidays and that this was "not fair" to the company, or those employees who were always on time.
Attached to the email – that was sent to the company's 20 employees – was a shared employee diary. The director had highlighted entries where employees were late, off sick or on holidays to illustrate his concerns.
However the majority of the absences related to an employee who was having chemotherapy for breast cancer at the time. She subsequently brought proceedings for defamation against the company, claiming the email implied she had hurt the company and acted unfairly to other staff by unjustifiably taking time off work.
The court found that the email and employee diary could have been defamatory, but because they were sent without malicious purpose, and to address genuine operational concerns, the worker had not been defamed.
Steven Price, a barrister specialising in media law, recommends “being careful with facts, moderate with tone, and making clear it's an expression of opinion”.
“Defamation lawyers can usually quickly vet a statement to check that it’s unlikely to cause trouble,” he said. “The sting can also often be taken out of a defamation [lawsuit] by the way it’s handled afterwards. If you find out you’ve sent out something wrong, and you take responsible steps to correct it and apologise, then it will often not be taken further. But these can’t guarantee that you won’t be sued.”
Defamation barrister Ali Romanos agrees, saying to make sure the communication is only sent to the necessary persons.
“Whoever you are communicating to and it involves a contentious matter ensure it only goes to the people it needs to go to. If that’s done the damage is reduced because the publication hasn’t gone too widely.”
He adds that if you have a genuine belief that what you’re communicating is for a legitimate purpose and can prove that then “you have got nothing to worry about”.
It is also important to note that qualified privilege, explained Romanos, can be lost if the plaintiff can show that the defendant was motivated by “ill will” or other “improper purpose”.
Price adds that it's not only emails that can create defamation problems.
“Defamatory statements in office newsletters or bulletin boards can get employers into trouble too,” he said. “It’s not unknown for employers to be sued for defamatory job references. But it’s not always the bosses that are the problem. If employees make defamatory statements to the media, or on social networks about competitors, for example, the company might be vicariously liable for them.”
