Court Opinion

ID: 9623633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:38:45.454315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:32.869730
License: Public Domain

Springer, J.,
with whom Steffen, C. J., agrees,
dissenting:
The majority would permit Ms. Simpson to proceed on the defamation portion of her “fourth cause of action,” which is entitled “Invasion of Privacy /Defamation.” The “fourth cause of action” (claim for relief) attempts to plead torts of invasion of privacy, defamation, slander and false light. It does not properly state a claim for any of these torts.
With respect to the defamation or slander claim upheld by the majority, the pleader fails to charge that the “publication” in *193questions was either malicious or false; and in making “damage allegations,” the pleader leaves out slander and restricts the plaintiff’s damage claims only to “those acts which constitute invasion of privacy.”
The language of the “fourth cause of action” in question is to me completely unintelligible; and I do not see how the trial court could possibly have let it stand. Although the pleader of this “cause of action” claims damages only for the tort of invasion of privacy, the pleading fails to mention this tort or any of its elements. Since the majority is only interested in salvaging the “slander” tort claims, I will limit my discussion to this claim and will ignore invasion of privacy and false light charges.
The gist of the defamation or slander claim is that “the Defendants” (necessarily the individual, unnamed, “Doe,” defendants) “published to co-workers that the Plaintiff sexually harassed them and was dismissed for sexual harassment.” Incom-prehensively, the complaint fails to charge that the publication was either malicious or false. It does, however, say that the defendants “knew of the falsity” and makes the conclusory allegation that by “publishing the statements ... to co-workers” the individual defendants “slandered and placed the Plaintiff in false light before her co-workers.”
It is very difficult to determine whether the pleader is trying to state a claim for invasion of privacy, defamation or false light; but the pleader’s intention becomes clearer when we reach the last paragraph in this “cause of action,” paragraph 48, in which the pleader incorporates previously averred “damage allegations” and specifies that these allegations “for the purpose of this [fourth] count shall refer to acts which constitute invasion of privacy.” From this paragraph we are able to learn that the damage allegations refer to the invasion of privacy claim alone and not to the defamation or false light claims that are referred to or touched upon throughout the “fourth cause of action.”
In sum, then, the pleader has attempted to charge defamation in a complaint in which there are no allegation of malice, no allegation of falsity and no allegation of damages with respect to the slander. It might, of course, be argued that the allegation that the defendants “knew” of the falsity fills in for the failure to allege that the statements themselves were false; but I do not think that the trial judge could be faulted in this case for dismissing slander charges because of this missing element, even if the other elements had been properly pleaded.
Malice and damages are necessary elements of the tort. Chowdhry v. NLVH, Inc., 109 Nev. 478, 483, 851 P.2d 459, 462 (1993). There is no mention of malice in the pleading, and the claim for damages is restricted to the invasion of privacy claim. *194The “invasion of privacy/defamation” “cause of action” was properly dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
In addition to its failure to plead the essential elements of malice, falsity and damages, Ms. Simpson has failed to plead the only other necessary element of “defamation,” publication. Ms. Simpson has alleged that some unnamed workers “published to co-workers that the Plaintiff sexually harassed them and was dismissed for sexual harassment” and that the publication was “done within the course and scope of their employment,” in other words, statements made among co-workers in pursuance of and as a part of their job.
The first thing that we must examine in determining whether Ms. Simpson failed to plead properly the element of publication (in addition to her failing to plead the other elements of the tort) is to separate the individual from the corporate defendants.
With regard to the corporate defendants, who are sued under respondeat superior, we must keep in mind that the tort in question is an intentional tort and that the corporations cannot be held liable unless there was some form of “corporate malice” (that is to say, some form of malice on the part of corporate management) or false and malicious statements issued by managerial personnel or the corporation. Cerminara v. California Hotel and Casino, 104 Nev. 372, 378, 760 P.2d 108, 111 (1975). There is no point in discussing this point at any length because it is clear that the statements alleged to have been made here are attributed to mere employees who were communicating with “co-workers” in the course of their employment. I see absolutely no basis for corporate liability for statements, true or false, that are made among “co-workers” about a fellow employee, whether these statements were job-connected or not. Generally speaking a corporation is not liable for the intentional torts of its line employees, absent special circumstances that are clearly not present here.
With regard to the question of whether Ms. Simpson has pleaded an actionable “publication” by and to “co-workers,” it is necessary to define what a publication is. Under Jones and Chowdhry, cited in the majority opinion, intracorporate communications made among agents and employees of a corporation acting “within the limits of their employment” are not “publications” for the purposes of slander claims. Under Chowdhry, a slander claimant must allege an “unprivileged communication” as part of a prima facie case for defamation. Had Ms. Simpson wanted to plead a proper defamation case with regard to the publication element, she would have had to have pleaded, under Jones and Chowdhry, an unprivileged communication, that is to *195say a communication that was not protected by the conditional privilege afforded to intracorporate communications. She chose not to do this and, rather, to plead that these communications were made as part of the employees’ job.
To salvage Ms. Simpson’s slander claim, the majority wants to upset Nevada precedent that has been in effect for the past fifteen years. This is unwise and unnecessary. All Ms. Simpson had to do to avert dismissal for failure to plead publication in this case was merely to allege that certain malicious, false and unprivileged communications (that is to say, communications that were not legitimately made as part of the “co-workers” employment were made about her. She is presumed to have known what Nevada law was on the subject, and I see no reason to change Nevada law to fit her purpose and to try to protect her from dismissal of an improperly pleaded element of her tort claim.
It seems to me that the majority is unnecessarily engaged in pin-head dancing in its discussion of publication as part of the prima facie case versus privilege as an affirmative defense; but even if I were to agree with the majority’s drastic alteration of Nevada precedent, and even if the essential elements of malice, falsity, damages and publication had been properly pleaded, the effect of this opinion would clearly bear only upon Mr., Ms. and Mrs. Doe. Under the majority ruling, if Ms. Simpson had pleaded the stated elements properly, she could then proceed on the intentional tort of slander only against the individual fictitiously-named defendants.
Ms. Simpson did not properly plead any of the elements of slander; consequently, the proper ruling of the trial court should stand.