Work, Lies and the Web

Injury to a company’s status is at all times a severe matter, and something that hurts an employer’s capacity to draw expertise in the course of the ongoing Nice Resignation is especially worrisome. One vexing query is tips on how to cope with damaging critiques in regards to the employer posted by staff or former staff on web sites corresponding to Glassdoor that assure posters’ anonymity.

An organization’s proper to redress resides primarily in state legislation claims for defamation and probably these for breach of nondisparagement clauses in severance agreements. The general public-policy situation in each sorts of claims includes weighing employers’ proper to guard their reputations towards staff’ proper to free speech and privateness. It may be a tough steadiness to strike.

Potential Approaches

Defamation typically is outlined as a false oral (slander) or written (libel) communication that damages one other’s status in the neighborhood or deters others from associating with them. The share of defamation claims that go to trial is small; amongst people who do, judicial opinions having precedential worth are rarer. For these causes, defamation claims are greatest dealt with by counsel who’re skilled within the pleading and follow points of personal-injury lawsuits of this nature within the related state.

Aaron Morris, an legal professional with Morris & Stone in Orange County, Calif., is one such skilled, having represented plaintiffs in defamation circumstances for many years. Even he doesn’t encourage dashing to the courthouse; moderately, he recommends first attempting a casual method.

“In case you get a nasty Glassdoor evaluation, you’re going to wish to do one thing about it,” Morris says. However don’t count on Glassdoor to readily take away it. The aim of those websites is to showcase damaging and constructive critiques, in order that they wouldn’t accomplish a lot in the event that they took down all of the unhealthy critiques. 

Even a well-founded defamation declare towards an nameless poster requires leaping by means of a variety of hoops.

“Don’t threaten them with a lawsuit,” Morris says. “You make the scenario adversarial for no purpose.” It’s higher, he contends, to have a nonlawyer firm consultant contact the evaluation web site, geared up with a listing of the explanation why a selected evaluation just isn’t respectable based mostly on the location’s personal phrases of use.

Nonetheless, Sara Bradley, an legal professional with Neumann Regulation in San Diego, thinks there’s a place for early lawyer-to-lawyer contact. After HR comes throughout an inaccurate or fraudulent publish, an legal professional’s letter explaining why the assertions within the evaluation are false would possibly persuade a web site to take away it.

If the location refuses to take away the evaluation, the employer can reply to it on-line in a measured and nondefensive method. Thank the reviewer for the suggestions, then clarify why the evaluation is inaccurate for almost all of staff. 

One other method is to water down a nasty evaluation. If a restaurant has 50 constructive Yelp critiques, one unhealthy or false evaluation won’t do a lot hurt, Morris says. But when an employer has three good critiques and one unhealthy, the potential for harm is far better. If an organization is aware of its staff are typically blissful and wish to see the enterprise do properly, Morris suggests asking them to offer steadiness by posting more-accurate critiques—with no trace of menace or promise of reward, in fact.

If none of those approaches works, it may be time to think about a defamation lawsuit—however provided that the unhealthy evaluation is “verifiably false,” Morris says. A evaluation that claims an organization has “the worst managers,” for instance, can be thought-about an opinion. A evaluation claiming that an organization is behind on payroll or doesn’t pay time beyond regulation includes details which are simply verified.

Enjoying the Lengthy Recreation

Even a well-founded defamation declare towards an nameless poster requires leaping by means of a variety of hoops earlier than getting any aid, Morris says. 

After submitting go well with, the corporate should provoke “discovery” to get the evaluation web site to establish the nameless poster. The evaluation web site will object, and the employer then responds with a movement to compel. If the movement is granted, the knowledge produced probably will consist solely of an IP tackle. The corporate will then must subpoena the related Web service supplier to acquire the poster’s identification.

As soon as the employer is aware of the poster’s identification, settlement is easy in a majority of the circumstances, Morris says. 

At that time, the corporate would supply a stipulated judgment—which turns into an enforceable courtroom order—wherein the poster admits to creating “false and defamatory” statements and agrees to take away the offending publish. 

An rising method to attacking the issue of unhealthy on-line critiques is to hunt enforcement of nondisclosure agreements that embrace nondisparagement clauses.

Even litigation that settles at an early stage is dear. 

Any employer that experiences a rash of false critiques would possibly contemplate the likelihood {that a} single indignant particular person is creating a number of accounts and posting as many critiques as doable underneath completely different display names. Discovering that a number of critiques got here from the identical IP tackle solutions that query. 

In any other case, Morris says, the employer has to face the tougher query: What’s motivating staff to go on the market and write these false critiques?  

Margaret M. Clark, J.D., SHRM-SCP, is a contract author in Arlington, Va.

Illustration by Adam Niklewicz for HR Journal.