SUPERVISOR SUCCESSFULLY BRINGS DEFAMATION CLAIM AGAINST UNION

Written on May 13, 2016.

It is rare for defamation claims by or against unions to successfully proceed in a union environment, but a recent case makes an exception. Thomas v. Steelworkers Local 1938, 37 IER Cases 1233 (C.A. 8, 2014). The supervisor at a steel mill established a claim subject to jury trial alleging that the vice president of the union defamed him regarding incidents between the supervisor and various employees. Various statements about the supervisor that he was a "prick, he is tired of [his] crap, and he is not going to put up with his s*** any more" were found to be simple statements of opinion, and thus not actionable as defamation. However, statements by the union official that he had received "twenty complaints on [him]" that "[he] has been verbally abusive to others for the past five years" and that "[he] has been making threats and throwing his weight around for the past five years" were all statements asserting that the supervisor had been harassing his crew for at least five years. The federal appeals court, interpreting Minnesota's state law, concluded that such statements implies a specific type of reprehensible conduct that are capable of being proven false, and thus there were sufficient genuine disputes of material fact regarding the element of falsity to make the statements actionable and subject to a jury trial.

The court also concluded that the statements were not entitled to a qualified privilege, because they were made in a situation which was not the proper occasion for the union to make statements about the alleged behavior. The court also noted that the union official had failed to investigate any of the complaints prior to his statements which prevented such statements from being based upon reasonable cause.

Editor's Note: Defamation claims in the workplace rarely succeed because of various privileges relating to statements made in the course of investigations and/or various labor law pre-emption issues. Further, many such statements are deemed only one of opinion and thus not defamatory. Nevertheless, as this case reveals, there are exceptions to such general rules.