Opinion ID: 203443
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Cross-Appeal on Slander Award

Text: The district court determined that FedEx was entitled to judgment as a matter of law as to the slander claim because Soto had failed to link rumors regarding the cause of his termination to a FedEx employee acting within the scope of his employment. We agree. To establish his slander claim, Soto bore the burden of proving that a FedEx employee, acting within the scope of his employment, transmitted a false and defamatory statement to another person, and that this transmission was negligent  as opposed to merely accidental  and non-privileged. [13] Corrada Betances v. Sea-Land Serv., Inc., No. Civ. 99-1671 JP, 2000 WL 33687211, at -5 (D.P.R. July 24, 2000), aff'd, 248 F.3d 40 (1st Cir.2001); see also Torres Silva v. El Mundo, Inc., 106 D.P.R. 415, 6 P.R. Offic. Trans. 581, 598 (P.R.1977). Circumstantial evidence may be used to prove that it was the defendant who made a particular  allegedly defamatory  statement. See Riisna v. Am. Broad. Cos., 219 F.Supp.2d 568, 575 (S.D.N.Y.2002); Robert D. Sack, Sack on Defamation § 2.5.1, at -85 (Mar.2007) ([I]t has been said that circumstantial evidence may be used to establish that the defendant published the allegedly defamatory words. That is not to say, however, that the content of an allegedly defamatory statement can be proven purely through hearsay.). Soto introduced evidence that rumors regarding the reasons for his suspension and dismissal circulated widely among FedEx employees. He testified that he did not tell anyone at FedEx what had happened. Nonetheless, soon after he was suspended, he received inquiries from his coworkers, asking whether it was true that he had been suspended because his wife had given him a package containing drugs. Soto also introduced testimony that FedEx kept personnel files strictly confidential. One witness testified that, based on his fourteen years with the company, leaked information about an employee could only come from management. However, that same witness also testified that no member of management had told him anything about the reasons for Soto's suspension. Soto argues that the evidence that the rumors did not come from Soto himself, and that only management would have had access to the information, allowed the jury to make a reasonable inference that FedEx management personnel were the source of the rumors. However, even if it were logical to infer, as Soto argues, that someone in FedEx management must have said something to someone to start the rumors, that inference falls far short of proving each of the elements of slander. See Riisna, 219 F.Supp.2d at 575 (There are too many links between any statement by [the defendant], if any there were, and whatever came back to plaintiff or her informants to permit a rational inference that whatever the plaintiff or her informants heard was what [the defendant] said.). Soto's circumstantial evidence that the rumors originated with management does not establish whether management personnel spoke negligently, rather than being accidentally overheard. Soto also did not establish that the statements that sparked the rumors were false. For example, management could have stated that Soto's package was stopped by officials after a K-9 alert for drugs. That statement is true and could not be grounds for a slander claim, though it could well have sparked the rumors. In sum, the evidence introduced in support of the slander claim does not rise to more than informal rumors circulating among employees, for which FedEx cannot be held liable. See Corrada Betances, 2000 WL 33687211, at . Accordingly, we affirm the district court's judgment as a matter of law in favor of FedEx on this claim.