“Fired workers are on a winning streak with lawsuits against their former employers — but not for being terminated. For being defamed. Juries are awarding millions of dollars in damages to terminated workers who claim their former bosses libeled them through a bad reference.” Scott Witlin, a partner with Proskauer Rose LLP, among the most prominent law firms on the management side, is blunt. “We advise our clients that the safest course is to confirm someone worked there and the dates of employment,” says Witlin. “That’s it.” (Maggie Mulvihill, “At the Bar: Suits target ex-employers for defaming”, Boston Herald, Jul. 29).

The phenomenon of reference-chill is by no means a new one, of course, dating back to the Eighties, but defenders of the litigation system have made occasional efforts to deny it: a 1997 article in U.S. News, for example, breezily dismissed as “myth” the view that “Providing references for a former employee is asking for legal trouble”. (Amy Saltzman, “Suppose They Sue”, U.S. News, Sept. 22, 1997, reprinted at Manhattan Institute site).

Filed under: libel slander and defamation, Manhattan Institute, workplace