Citation Numbers: 442 Mass. 64
Judges: Cowin, Marshall
Filed Date: 6/11/2004
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 6/25/2022
Roy Albert White, a former employee of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Inc. (Blue Cross), commenced an action in the Superior Court seeking to hold Blue Cross hable for allegedly defamatory statements made to White while he was employed by Blue Cross and subsequently communicated by White to prospective employers. A Superior Court judge allowed Blue Cross’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted because White conceded that Blue Cross had not communicated the defama
1. Background. As alleged in his complaint,
On March 19, 2002, White was called to a meeting with Patrick Cuniff, Blue Cross’s director of human resources, and Allen Hinkle, its vice-president of innovation, quality, and cost. Hinkle informed White that a complaint had been received from Winchester Hospital to the effect that White, while in the presence of representatives from the other hospitals, had divulged the details of a confidential financial settlement between Blue Cross and Winchester Hospital. Hinkle told White he would be discharged immediately because of this conduct. White denied the accusation, and claims that he did not even know about any settlement between Blue Cross and Winchester Hospital, let alone divulge its details to anyone. Despite White’s request that Blue Cross investigate the matter further, Cuniff did not do so, allegedly acting on the advice of a lawyer.
White subsequently applied for numerous jobs in health care management, to no avail. This was predictable, he alleges, because most prospective employers inquired about his reason for leaving Blue Cross. Because he refused “to lie,” he was “compelled,” he says, to reveal that he was discharged “for allegedly disclosing confidential financial information.”
As noted earlier, White does not claim that Blue Cross com
2. Discussion. To prevail on a claim of defamation, a plaintiff must establish that the defendant was at fault for the publication of a false statement
Recognition of the doctrine of compelled self-publication defamation is far from unanimous. Some State courts of last resort have rejected it. See Gore v. Health-Tex, Inc., 567 So. 2d 1307, 1308-1309 (Ala. 1990); Cweklinsky v. Mobil Chem. Co., 267 Conn. 210, 226 (2004); Gonsalves v. Nissan Motor Corp. in Haw., 100 Haw. 149, 171-173 (2002); Sullivan v. Baptist Memorial Hosp., 995 S.W.2d 569, 571-574 (Tenn. 1999); Lunz v. Neuman, 48 Wash. 2d 26, 33 (1955).
White acknowledges that some appellate authority counsels against his argument, but invites us to adopt the doctrine of compelled self-publication where the employee claims that the employer knew or should have known that the defamatory statement was false. We conclude that, even in these circumstances, adoption of the doctrine is ill-advised. We recognize the conundrum faced by discharged employees who are required by prospective employers to explain the circumstances of their discharge. But as the leading authority on defamation has explained, compelled self-publication defamation in the employment context is “troubling conceptually.” 1 R.D. Sack, supra at 2-84. “It is the termination and the reasons for it, not the communication, about which the plaintiff is actually complaining . . . .” Id. at 2-85. Any harm arising from the employee’s discharge is more appropriately dealt with under principles of employment law, and not under the law of libel and slander. Id.
It is surely for that, among other reasons, that several courts have pointed to the doctrine’s unpredictable effect on at-will employment. See Cweklinsky v. Mobil Chem. Co., supra at 225-226; Gonsalves v. Nissan Motor Corp. in Haw., supra at 172.
White no doubt would counter that the harm he has suffered is occasioned not by his discharge, but by his failure to obtain alternative employment, an entirely foreseeable consequence, he argues, of Blue Cross’s failure to investigate the truthfulness of Winchester Hospital’s charge against him. But recognition of the doctrine of self-publication would run counter to another important aspect of employer-employee relations, an employer’s privilege to “disclose defamatory information concerning an employee when the publication is reasonably necessary to serve the employer’s legitimate interest in the fitness of an employee to perform his or her job.” Bratt v. International Business Machs. Corp., 392 Mass. 508, 509 (1984). Communications between former and prospective employers concerning an employee are similarly privileged. See Burns v. Barry, 353 Mass. 115, 118-119 (1967). These privileges serve the important public purpose of promoting the free flow of information in the workplace, and are lost only when the employer recklessly makes “unnecessary, unreasonable or excessive” publications. Bratt v. International Business Machs. Corp., supra at 509, 515 n.11. There is no such claim here.
Recognition of the doctrine of compelled self-publication defamation brings with it the potential to stifle communication in the workplace. See Cweklinsky v. Mobil Chem. Co., supra at
Blue Cross was well within its rights to give White any reason, a false reason, or no reason at all for his termination. Cort v. Bristol-Myers Co., 385 Mass. 300, 305 (1982) (“an employer has no duty to give any reason at the time of discharging an employee at will”). But at-will employees, no less than others, benefit immensely from open communications concerning their performance, prospects for advancement, and related matters, even if discharge results.
White argues that the “compulsion” element of the doctrine, that White was actually compelled to communicate the false information and that such compulsion was foreseeable to Blue Cross, will curtail any explosion of defamation litigation. We are not so sanguine. It is all but inevitable that a discharged employee will be called on to explain the circumstances of his discharge to prospective employers. And discharged employees will inevitably feel compelled to describe negative performance
There are, in addition, pragmatic reasons why the doctrine should be rejected. The search for future employment may extend over a considerable period. Even a discharged employee who secures new employment may later move to a new position, and will be called on to explain once more the circumstances of an earlier discharge. If the discharged employee is free to commence an action any time he claims to be harmed from self-disclosure of the “defamation,” procedural rules, such as the statute of limitations become meaningless. See 1 R.D. Sack, supra at § 2.5.2, at 2-84 (compelled self-publication permits discharged employees “to control the manner and timing of the defamation as a litigation tactic” and “could also allow the plaintiffs effectively to void the statute of limitations”). As the dissent frankly notes, post at 73 n.1, the discharged employee may publish and republish the alleged defamatory statement “for the remainder of his professional life.”
We are mindful of the harm White may have suffered. The
Judgment affirmed.
The defamation doctrine at issue is variously called “compelled self-publication,” see, e.g., Cweklinsky v. Mobil Chem. Co., 267 Conn. 210, 212 (2004); “self-defamation,” see, e.g., Austin v. Inet Techs., Inc., 118 S.W.3d 491, 499 (Tex. Ct. App. 2003); “defamation by self-publication,” see, e.g., CIM Ins. Corp. v. Masamitsu, 74 F. Supp. 2d 975, 990 (D. Haw. 1999); and “forced republication,” see, e.g., Atkinson v. Stop-N-Go Foods, Inc., 83 Ohio App. 3d 132, 135 (1992).
We accept as true the allegations in the complaint, and such reasonable inferences as may be drawn from it in favor of the plaintiff. See Eyal v. Helen Broadcasting Corp., 411 Mass. 426, 429 (1991).
The complaint included one count sounding in defamation, alleging a communication of the accusation by Cuniff to other members of the Blue Cross staff. Prior to this appeal, White filed a stipulation of dismissal of that count.
By statute, Massachusetts permits a plaintiff to recover for a truthful defamatory statement published in writing (or its equivalent) with actual malice, G. L. c. 231, § 92, except as confined by the requirements of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. See Ravnikar v. Bogojavlensky, 438 Mass. 627, 629 n.3 (2003); Shaari v. Harvard Student Agencies, Inc., 427 Mass. 129, 131-132 (1998).
Other States have rejected the doctrine by statute. For example, in Colorado, the doctrine was adopted by Churchey v. Adolph Coors Co., 759 P.2d 1336, 1343-1345 (Colo. 1988), but subsequently eliminated by statute. See Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-25-125.5 (West 1997). See also Volm v. Legacy Health Sys., Inc., 237 F. Supp. 2d 1166 (D. Or. 2002) (noting that Or. Rev. Stat. § 30.178[2] [2003], adopted in 1997 in response to Downs v. Waremart, Inc., 324 Or. 307 [1996], precluded compelled self-defamation in employment context).
Contrary to the dissent, post at 74-75, illustrations to the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 577 comment m (1997) do not support dispensing with the long-established requirement that the defendant must publish the defamatory statement to a third party. The Restatement’s illustrations merely underscore that a defendant cannot invoke as a pretext defense that a defamatory letter was intended for the plaintiff alone where the defendant knows that the plaintiff, because he is blind, for example, must disclose it to a third party. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 577 comment m, illustration 10. Here, White was fully aware of the statements he published to prospective employers. Unlike the illustrations, he was not required to republish the reason for his discharge because he did not understand it.
In Minnesota, the doctrine recognized in Lewis v. Equitable Life Assur. Soc’y, 389 N.W.2d 876, 886-887 (Minn. 1986), is limited by statutes that disallow compelled self-defamation claims in certain circumstances. See Minn. Stat. Ann. § 181.962(2) (West 1993) (barring self-defamation claims based on employee’s review of own personnel file); Minn. Stat. Ann. § 181. 933(2) (West 2004) (barring self-defamation claims based on employee’s request of reason for discharge in writing).
The doctrine arguably has been adopted in Alaska. See Odom v. Fairbanks Memorial Hosp., 999 P. 2d 123, 130-131 (Alaska 2000) (affirming dismissal of defamation claim by physician against hospital for reporting termination, as required by law, to national practitioner data bank); id. at 133-134 & n.1 (Fabe, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (noting that, although court’s opinion does not so state, remaining claims for defamation were based on theory of self-publication).
Miller v. Butler, 6 Cush. 71 (1850), is cited in Annot., Publication of Allegedly Defamatory Matter by Plaintiff (“Self-Publication”) as Sufficient to Support Defamation Action, 62 A.L.R.4th 616, 625-626 (1988), for the proposition that Massachusetts has accepted the doctrine of compelled self-defamation. The Miller case, however, did not involve self-publication. Only one Massachusetts appellate decision has cited Miller v. Butler, supra, for the proposition that it may support the claim of self-defamation, but only to question the “vitality” of compelled self-defamation in Massachusetts. O’Connell v. Bank of Boston, 37 Mass. App. Ct. 416, 422 n.3 (1994).
Defamatory statements that harm a plaintiff’s professional or business reputation are actionable without proof of economic loss. See Ravnikar v. Bogojavlensky, supra at 630.
The Massachusetts cases relied on by the dissent do not concern self-publication by a plaintiff of a defamatory statement. See post at 75-76, citing Bander v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 313 Mass. 337, 347-348 (1943) (sufficient evidence for jury to find defendant liable where, as defendant anticipated, supervisor read letter from company addressed to plaintiff); Rumney v. Worthley, 186 Mass. 144, 145-146 (1904) (sufficient evidence for jury to find defendant liable where he had “good reason to believe” that plaintiff’s daughter, a clerk in his store, would open and read letters pertaining to business before delivering letter to plaintiff); Miller v. Butler, 6 Cush. 71, 74 (1850) (letter containing defamatory statements mailed by defendants to third person). Because in those cases there was evidence that the defendant knew