Principal’s Defamation Suit Can Proceed

A California appellate court recently filed an interesting opinion in a defamation suit by a school principal over social media posts. A middle school principal resigned, and a student's mother posted on a large Facebook group that he had been fired over claims of sexual harassment. She also said that a previous school had fired him for the same reasons. The principal's attorney asked her to take the post down, but she refused. Her husband left a phone message for the attorney calling his request “hilarious” and saying he had money to litigate the issue. The principal then filed suit for defamation.

The court's opinion looked at the rather narrow issue of whether the trial court should have dismissed the case under the state's anti-SLAPP statute.  In deciding that question in favor of the principal, the court decided that the principal could point to several pieces of evidence showing that the parents acted with reckless disregard of the truth. First, the school system had sent a public statement stating that the principal had not left because of any negative allegations, and that, although he had been sued while at the previous school, there had been no findings against him. In addition to the husband's aggressive voice mail, the mother statement in her defense cited only gossip and hearsay as the basis for her post.

It's too soon to say what evidence will be developed in discovery, but the case is an instructive one. California law is in line with most state laws on actual malice and defamation. Most attorneys advise using litigation as a last-ditch resort for battling negative social media, but defamation laws do allow suits with the right set of facts.

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