Case Title: Larimore v. Blaylock

Citation: 

Docket Number: 991567

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2000-04-21T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  Carrico, C.J., Lacy, Hassell, Keenan, Koontz, and 
Kinser, JJ., and Poff, Senior Justice 
 
L. KEITH LARIMORE 
 
v.  Record No. 991567     OPINION BY JUSTICE ELIZABETH B. LACY 
 
 
 
April 21, 2000 
BRUCE K. BLAYLOCK, ET AL. 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF RADFORD 
Duane E. Mink, Judge 
 
 
In this appeal, we consider whether defamatory 
communications between persons involved in a university's 
tenure review process are entitled to the defense of qualified 
privilege or absolute immunity under a doctrine of 
"intracorporate immunity." 
 
L. Keith Larimore, a Professor of Marketing in the 
College of Business and Economics at Radford University, filed 
a motion for judgment alleging that during the course of his 
tenure review proceeding the defendants falsely accused him of 
unethical publishing practices.  The defendants were two 
members of his Department Review Committee, Hsin-Min Tong and 
Melvin R. Mattson, the former Chairman of the Department, 
Howard W. Combs, and the Dean of the College of Business and 
Economics, Bruce K. Blaylock.  The defendants filed a motion 
for summary judgment asserting, inter alia, that they were 
absolutely immune from liability under doctrines of sovereign 
immunity and "intracorporate privilege." 
The trial court concluded that summary judgment was 
appropriate and entered judgment in favor of the defendants 
concluding that they were "protected by the doctrine of 
intracorporate immunity" in that the complained of 
communications "occurred between persons within the 
corporation of Radford University having a legitimate 
corporate interest in the subject matter of the 
communications, and there is, therefore, no publication 
sufficient to support the charge of defamation."1  Larimore 
filed an appeal asserting that the trial court erred in 
holding that the defendants were "clothed in absolute 
privilege" by the "intracorporate immunity doctrine."  Because 
the communications at issue are properly treated as matters of 
qualified privilege, not absolute privilege, we will reverse 
the judgment of the trial court and remand the case for 
further proceedings. 
 
The tenure review process, as set out in Radford 
University's Faculty Handbook, begins with an evaluation by a 
three-member personnel review committee comprised of faculty 
members from the applicant's department.  The Vice President 
for Academic Affairs receives the Committee's recommendation 
along with recommendations from the Chair of the applicant's 
                     
1 The trial court did not rule on defendants' plea of 
sovereign immunity and that matter is not before us.  
 
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department and the Dean of the College.  Copies of these 
recommendations are also sent to the tenure applicant.  The 
Vice President submits his or her recommendation to the 
University President who, in turn, submits a recommendation to 
the Board of Visitors for a final decision.  If the 
recommendation of the Vice President or President is negative, 
the tenure applicant is informed and may appeal any negative 
recommendation to the Faculty Grievance Committee.  The 
applicant may also seek an appeal before the Board of Visitors 
regarding tenure matters. 
Larimore received negative tenure recommendations from 
the faculty review committee, the Chair of his Department, the 
Dean of the College, and the Vice-President.  However, the 
President recommended that he receive tenure, as did the 
Personnel Committee of the Board of Visitors.  Prior to a vote 
by the Board, the defendants wrote letters to members of the 
Board urging that Larimore's tenure application be denied.  
All of these communications except the recommendation of the 
Vice-President and President contained the allegedly 
defamatory statements.  The Board voted to deny Larimore 
tenure.  Larimore, pursuant to the University's appeal 
procedures, requested reconsideration of the Board's decision.  
The Board granted the reconsideration and authorized an 
investigation of the matter.  Following this investigation and 
 
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the President's positive tenure recommendation, the Board 
voted to grant Larimore's tenure application.  
 Larimore divides the defamatory communications which 
form the basis of this appeal into two categories.2  The first 
is the transmission of such communications by the defendants 
in accordance with the tenure process outlined above.  The 
second category involves communications made by the defendants 
directly to members of the Board of Visitors.3   Larimore 
asserts here, as he did in the trial court, that the 
defendants are entitled to raise the defense of qualified 
privilege for those communications in the first category, but 
that the defense is not available for the second category 
because those communications were not authorized by the 
Faculty Handbook and, therefore, the defendants were under no 
duty to make them. 
 
Communications between persons on a subject in which the 
persons have an interest or duty are occasions of privilege.  
However, the privilege attaching to such occasions is a 
qualified privilege which may be defeated if the plaintiff 
                     
2 Larimore's motion for judgment also included counts 
relating to other allegedly defamatory communications which 
the trial court held were barred by the statute of 
limitations.  Larimore did not assign error to that holding.  
3 Larimore also complained of defamatory communications 
made in conjunction with a disciplinary process which was 
contemporaneously proceeding against him.  However, for 
 
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proves that the defamatory statement was made maliciously.  
Chalkley v. Atlantic Coast Line R.R. Co., 150 Va. 301, 306, 
143 S.E. 631, 632 (1928).  We have applied the doctrine of 
qualified privilege in a number of cases involving defamatory 
statements made between co-employees and employers in the 
course of employee disciplinary or discharge matters.  See 
Southeastern Tidewater Opportunity Project, Inc. v. Bade, 246 
Va. 273, 435 S.E.2d 131 (1993); Oberbroeckling v. Lyle, 234 
Va. 373, 362 S.E.2d 682 (1987); Great Coastal Express, Inc. v. 
Ellington, 230 Va. 142, 334 S.E.2d 846 (1985); Montgomery Ward 
& Co. v. Nance, 165 Va. 363, 182 S.E. 264 (1935); Thalhimer 
Bros. v. Shaw, 156 Va. 863, 159 S.E. 87 (1931); Chesapeake 
Ferry Co. v. Hudgins, 155 Va. 874, 156 S.E. 429 (1931); and 
Chalkley, supra. 
The protection of a qualified privilege is afforded 
because: 
[p]ublic policy and the interest of society demand 
that in cases such as this an employer, or his 
proper representatives, be permitted to discuss 
freely with an employee, or his chosen 
representatives, charges affecting his employment 
which have been made against the employee to the 
employer.  There is a privilege on such occasions 
and a communication made under such circumstances, 
within the scope of the privilege, without malice in 
fact, is not actionable, even though the imputation 
be false, or founded upon erroneous information.  
The question is not as to the truth or falsity of 
                                                                
purposes of the issue involved in this appeal, we need not 
detail the disciplinary proceedings.  
 
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the communication, or whether the action taken by 
the defendant with reference thereto or based 
thereon was right or wrong, but whether the 
defendant in making the publication acted in good 
faith or was inspired by malice. 
 
Chesapeake Ferry, 155 Va. at 906-07, 156 S.E. at 441.  Neither 
the soundness of this policy nor the application of qualified 
privilege in these circumstances has been questioned or 
altered over the passage of time. 
 
The defendants contend, however, that neither the 
doctrine of qualified privilege nor its underlying policy 
should be applied to this case.  Here, the defendants assert, 
they were entitled to the absolute protection of the 
"intracorporate immunity doctrine."  That doctrine, as 
described by the defendants, is that statements "published 
only to persons within a corporate entity having a duty and 
interest in the subject matter of the communication, have not 
been 'published' for defamation purposes."  According to the 
defendants, this doctrine was recognized in Montgomery Ward, 
Thalhimer, and Chalkley.  Such a higher level of protection is 
appropriate here, the defendants assert, because of the nature 
of their duties in the tenure review process.  We reject these 
arguments. 
 
In the three cases relied on by the defendants, the 
defamatory statements were made in connection with the 
discharge of the plaintiffs from employment and were 
 
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recognized as privileged occasions to which the qualified 
privilege defense applied.  While in each case the defamatory 
statements were communicated to persons within the corporate 
entity, at least one of the employees who heard or read the 
statement was not an employee who ordinarily would have a duty 
or interest in the termination decision.  The issue in this 
regard was whether the privileged occasion was lost because 
communication of the statement to such an employee constituted 
communication or publication to a third party.  If so, 
liability for defamatory statements would attach regardless of 
malicious intent. 
In the Chalkley case, all parties to the alleged 
defamatory statement, including Chalkley, were employees of 
the telegraph company.  The complained of statement was a 
termination communication telegraphed by Chalkley's 
superintendent to the telegraph company dispatcher for 
delivery to Chalkley through telegraph operators.  The Court 
held that this was an occasion of privilege, id. at 305-06, 
143 S.E. at 632, and that there was no showing of malice or 
abuse of the privilege, id. at 325, 143 S.E. at 637-38. 
Even though the Court found an absence of malice, it went 
on to consider whether the communication was made under 
circumstances which would qualify as publication to third 
parties for defamation purposes.  If such publication 
 
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occurred, the privileged occasion would be defeated and 
Chalkley would not be required to show malice in order to 
impose liability on the defendant.  After reviewing cases from 
other jurisdictions, the Court in Chalkley concluded that the 
communication in that case "was privileged and the typist had 
a duty to discharge in the ordinary course of business in 
connection with the transcription of the communication."  Id. 
at 334, 143 S.E. at 640.  The Court then stated that "this is 
not a publication which will support such an action . . . .  
The communication is therefore held to be a communication from 
the company directly to the employee, and there is no evidence 
showing any publication of the alleged libelous matter by the 
employer, or its agents, and hence there is no basis for the 
action."  Id. at 334-35, 143 S.E. at 640-41.  The Court 
concluded there was no publication of the statements to a 
third party which would defeat the privileged occasion and 
thus, because the Court had already concluded there was no 
evidence of malice, Chalkley could not prevail. 
 
The Thalhimer and Montgomery Ward decisions addressed 
similar circumstances and, citing Chalkley, applied the 
principle that the privilege prevailed in circumstances where 
the defamatory statements were dictated to a secretary who had 
no duty or interest with regard to the subject of the employee 
discharge but who had a duty to transcribe the statements.  
 
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Montgomery Ward, 165 Va. at 380-81, 182 S.E. at 271; 
Thalhimer, 156 Va. at 870-71, 159 S.E. at 90. 
 
The thrust of these cases is that employment matters are 
occasions of privilege in which the absence of malice is 
presumed.  This privilege is lost if defamatory statements are 
communicated to third parties who have no duty or interest in 
the subject matter, even if those third parties are fellow 
employees.  However, communication of the statements to an 
employee required to transcribe or transmit the communication 
containing the defamatory statements is not a publication to a 
third party which would cause the loss of the privilege.  We 
find nothing in these cases to suggest, as the defendants 
contend, that all transmissions of defamatory statements 
between members of the corporate entity are entitled to 
absolute immunity.  Furthermore, no case subsequently decided 
by this Court has resolved defamation claims involving 
employees of a corporate entity by utilizing the concept of 
absolute immunity suggested by the defendants. 
 
Finally, the defendants assert that, as a policy matter, 
they should be given enhanced protection because they were 
"required" to issue "adverse or potentially adverse" reports.  
We disagree.  The defendants' role in the tenure review 
process is to provide a "recommendation" regarding tenure 
based on criteria stated in the Faculty Handbook.  While such 
 
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recommendations may from time to time be adverse, there is no 
requirement that the recommendation be adverse or potentially 
adverse.  In this regard, the defendants' duties in the tenure 
review process are no different than the duties of employees 
generally to inform management of adverse or improper actions 
by fellow employees and the duty of management to investigate 
and make decisions regarding matters of continued employment.  
The fact that the defendants here are connected with a 
university and involved in a tenure decision provides no basis 
for crafting a different and much broader protection than that 
available in other workplace settings. 
 
The rule of qualified privilege that we adopted years ago 
continues to encourage open communications on matters of 
employment while not shielding the use of such communications 
for an individual's personal malicious purposes.  Therefore, 
we agree with Larimore and conclude that the trial court erred 
in holding that the doctrine of qualified privilege did not 
apply and that the communications at issue were absolutely 
immune from Larimore's defamation claims. 
We disagree, however, with Larimore's position that 
because, under the Faculty Handbook, the defendants had no 
duty to communicate directly with the Board of Visitors, the 
qualified privilege defense is not available for those 
communications.  The Faculty Handbook sets forth a method of 
 
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complying with the duties owed by employees involved in tenure 
review matters, but such procedural rules are not the 
standards by which we determine the applicability of the 
qualified privilege defense in a common law defamation action.  
That determination is based on a party's interest and duty 
with regard to the subject matter.  The members of the Board 
of Visitors are persons with a duty and interest in Larimore's 
tenure application and communications made to them in 
connection with the tenure application are entitled to the 
defense of qualified privilege. 
 
In summary, we hold that Larimore's tenure application 
process was a privileged occasion and any defamatory 
statements communicated by the defendants to the Board of 
Visitors and members of the University administration were 
entitled to a qualified privilege which shields the defendants 
from liability unless a showing of malice is made by clear and 
convincing evidence.  Great Coastal Express, 230 Va. at 154, 
334 S.E.2d at 854.  Therefore, we will reverse the judgment of 
the trial court and remand the matter for further proceedings 
consistent with the views expressed in this opinion. 
Reversed and remanded. 
 
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