Opinion ID: 1794896
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hunnel's Use of the Words White Cross.

Text: Huegerich testified that Hunnel put a pill in a bottle, shook it up and said, Yeah, it's a white cross. During this time Hunnel, Huegerich, and Henrich were in the security office and no one outside the office could hear the conversation. The district court specifically found that no one outside the office could hear the conversation about Huegerich being in possession of white cross. The key to whether Hunnel's statement meets the publication requirement of defamation is whether Henrich, the third person, heard and understood the statement to be defamatory. Henrich testified that he observed Hunnel perform the test. He understood that when the liquid in the vial turned purple, the pill tested was a substance that IBP policy expressly forbid from being in the plant. He did not testify regarding any statements made by Hunnel. We find the record does not contain sufficient evidence that Henrich heard and understood that Hunnel was accusing Huegerich of possessing an illegal substance. While discussing the situation with Jepsen after the testing, Hunnel described the pills as a look-alike drug. Furthermore, he expressly terminated Huegerich for a violation of IBP's look-alike drug policy, not for bringing an illegal controlled substance into the plant. We conclude that Huegerich failed to prove that Hunnel published a defamatory statement when he described the pill as white cross.