Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

Re: What constitutes slander

Slander is a false statement of fact made to a third party, which damages your reputation. The comments from the other users seem to prove that your reputation has been harmed. If these postings are factual statements (as opposed to statements of pure opinion) and are false, then you are being slandered.

You are not obligated to respond, though if you sue and seek damages the defendant can point to your silence as a failure to at least try to minimize your injury.

There is a standard jury instruction in criminal cases which says that silence in response to an accusation may be considered an admission if an average reasonable person would have responded under the circumstances. Even if you decide to sue and can find out who this person is, yours won't be a criminal case and you won't be the accused, so you don't have to worry about the instruction. I mention it to show that the courts frequently view unexpected silence the way your fellow list memebers do -- as a tacit admission that the statements are true.