Here’s Why I Was Fired From My Last Job

Telling a future employer why your former employer fired you does not create a claim for compelled self-defamation.

The plaintiff in the case, an attorney, argued that she was compelled to tell future employers that her previous employer had told her she was fired because she mishandled cases, violated the attorney code of ethics, and disclosed attorney-client confidences, even though she said those charges were not truthful. To not disclose the reasons for her dismissal to future employers, she contended, would subject her to future charges of misconduct before the attorney registration and disciplinary commission. By being required to state the former employer’s reasons for her termination, she contended that she was compelled to defame herself.

In order for there to be defamation, there must be a publication of the defamatory statement by a third party. There is no defamation if the defamed party herself publishes the defamatory statement. A minority of states recognize a cause of action for compelled self-defamation. Those states have found that the defamed former employee can satisfy the publication requirement because the former employee “effectively is ‘compelled’ to publish the defamatory statement to prospective employers when she is asked why she left her former employment,” the Illinois appellate court explained.

Here, however, the court rejected that argument. To allow a former employee to sue for self-defamation would encourage employers to curtail communications with employees and the employees’ prospective employers for fear of liability and could discourage plaintiffs from mitigating damages by providing them with too much control over the cause of action, the court said.

Emery v. Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corp., 1st Dist. Illinois No. 01-05-3584, issued Nov. 30, 2007.