I want to seek justice from those that had a direct impact on my current finanicl condition.
False reference by an supervisor
Do I have a case? My division was being terminated due to consolidation. Therefore, we were false to seek employment in other areas of the bank. As a result, I and other person applied for employment in the Markets Department and I was not given the position. After I was turn down for the job, my former supervisor told me that the interviewer asked her for her opinion of us. She informed him that I had no experience at the bank tender desk and the other person did have the experience, therefore, she was a better candidate for the job than I. Thereby titling the scale for that person. However, I have 5 years experience with the job and I informed her that she gave wrong information about me.
This supervisor only worked with me for one year and really had no idea of my experiences, but she freely gave false information I believe, because she was favorable towards the other person. Nevertheless, to show that even though she gave false information, she informed me that I still had no chance of getting the job, because rumors were spreading that I was a difficult person to work with.
Next, I applied for another position in the Cash Department in which at the time had two positions available. In addition, a similar position in this department was offered to me several years ago by a Senior VP, therefore I thought I had a chance. Further, other employees from my department were given an opportunity to work in this department without any interviews at all. However, the response to my job application was that one position was filled and the other was not going to be filled at this time.
It was at this point I knew there was no future employment for me at this organization and I was under a lot of stress, because my husband was in critical condition in the hospital. Therefore, I accepted the downsize package in walked away. However, the fact that I lost half of my pension after working 31 years bothers me today. If I was given a fair opportunity or at least an honest one than maybe, I could have worked the years needed to receive 2,000 dollars a month rather than 1,000 for my pension. I was 48 years old when they let me go and I applied for my pension benefits when I turned 50 in 2002.
Answers (1)
I get this sense that there may be something more going on in your situation, but I can only guess what it might be. Therefore, for the purpose of responding your general query, I will base my response only what you have specifically stated in your query.
Your case facially might involve a defamation situation, but I doubt you will be able to get anywhere with it for at least two reasons.
First, not all statements that a person might consider false are defamation. For example, opinions are often said to fall outside of the definition of defamation. In part, this is the law because of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution. In the US, we provide special protection to the opinions people might have, no matter how wrong-headed the opinions might be.
Second, the statements made by your supervisor within the bank would likely be considered be qualified privileged.
In your situation, a privilege is a form of protection from being sued. The law grants protection to certain types of communications, because the law considers the communications important. Here, you have an example of an employee communicating information of interest to an employer to another employee. That would be considered privileged.
Actually, the communication would be qualified privileged, meaning it is protected, but not in all instances. A communication which is qualified privilege can be the subject of a defamation claim if it is utter with malice. Malice is hard to prove, and gets to the motivcation of the speaker.
There is also another limitation on a defmation claim. In this case, even if we assume that there were no problems with teh communication itself, you would likely have a claim only against your supervisor, and not your employer. You would want to go after your employer rather than your supervisor because your employer is likely to have "deeper pockets" than your supervisor.
In some instances, you might be able to hold an employer responsible for the defamatory statements of an employee, but the situation would have to involve the employee fulfilling a responsibility on behalf of the employer. For example, if a third party, like a company with whom you have applied for a job, sought a reference from your employer, and the employee responding to the reference provided information which as both false and injurious, then you might be able to hold the employer responsible for the defamation, because it was the responding employees job to respond to the request for a reference.
posted by David M. Lira | Jan 14, 2003 08:54 AM [EST]
Answer This Question
Sign In to Answer this Question
Related Questions with Answers