Legal Question in Personal Injury in California
my neighbor believes that I've called the cops on his loud, drunken, excessive parties and has pulled business from my hotel. The local police have explained to him it wasn't me who complained and that many neighbors have filed reports against him. He sent emails to my employer, coworkers and competition saying he'll never send me business because he blames me for the cops being called. I have copies of the emails and he refuses to send a retraction. He's already cancelled business and has said he's telling anyone associated with him not to do business with me. Is this a case for defamation by libel?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Your question is a little hard to follow, but it seems very unlikely you will have any claim against your neighbor. You may want to look up the elements involved in a defamation claim and run your facts through it. As a side note, if someone came to me and said, "don't do business with that person because he reported me to the police for having loud, drunken, excessive parties," I would think that someone was off his rocker and I would probably do the opposite of anything he advised.
The difficulty of a slander case (libel is in writing, slander is verbal) is that you have to prove damages. So, you have to prove 1) he lied; 2) people believed him and thought poorly of you as a result; and 3) these people caused you injury in reliance on this false belief by, in your case, not sending you business that you would have gotten otherwise. The 3rd requirement in your case is speculative - even if you have a loss of business it may be because of any of a number of other factors such as the economy, etc.
Also, if you sue your neighbor to try to shut him up, you are inviting the "Streisand Effect" - look it up.
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