Legal Question in Family Law in Tennessee
Witness harassment
I am in a grandparent visitation lawsuit as defendant. I submitted names of witnesses. The petitioner has contacted one witness' place of employment and accused her of misconduct in an attempt to get her fired. The petitioner also accused her of having an affair in an attempt to cause her marital problems and damage her reputation. The petitioner has made the allegations to many people in our small community. What course of action can the victim take and what course of action could I take as this is an attempt to intimidate a witness in my lawsuit.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Witness harassment
As for what the witness can do, she may have a defamation lawsuit, but those are very difficult to win and the money damages, if any, are hard to prove. There is a very short filing deadline (statute of limitations) for slander so if she wishes to pursue it she needs to do so ASAP. As for what you can do, your lawyer may be able to impeach the petitioner's credibility at trial because of these lies. Talk to your lawyer about that. There may be other options, that your lawyer may come up with as well. Best of luck to you.
Re: Witness harassment
I could prepare a motion for sanctions that you can file in court next week. The judge would normally set a hearing, at which you could explain the witness harasmment. But that witness would have to appear; you can't introduce hearsay evidence about what you heard out of court. Contact me at the website below if you are interested:
http://michaelguth.com/prose.htm
http://michaelguth.com/mgsite/prose/sitemap.html
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