{"id":228222,"date":"2014-12-09T06:23:57","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T13:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=228222"},"modified":"2014-12-01T16:24:31","modified_gmt":"2014-12-01T23:24:31","slug":"the-irony-of-defamation-lawsuits-construction-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/the-irony-of-defamation-lawsuits-construction-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"The Irony of Defamation Lawsuits \u2013 Construction Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stanley A. Martin | Duane Morris LLP | November 14, 2014<\/p>\n<p>There is a certain irony in any defamation lawsuit, which is a public request for redress arising from a statement the claimant says should not have been made public. Now we have the construction version. Company A sues Company B, claiming statements of B about the quality of A\u2019s work defamed A. The lower court construed the statements as opinion (and thus not defamatory). The Massachusetts Appeals Court has held that the statement could have been verified and\u00a0so was\u00a0factual, but it was subject to a \u201cconditional privilege\u201d that barred the defamation claim. The decision \u2013 now very public! \u2013 is in the matter of\u00a0Downey v. Chutehall Construction Co., Inc.[1]<\/p>\n<p>A new roof was installed on a Boston townhouse in 2005. Several years later, the homeowners engaged another contractor to examine leaks. The investigating contractor wrote that the original roofing work in 2005 \u201cwas installed over a [sic] EPDM roof system that had fiberboard roof insulation that was soaking wet.\u201d In the ensuing lawsuit by the homeowners against the original roofer, that company took umbrage over this statement, bringing its own claim against the investigating contractor based on the quoted statement.<\/p>\n<p>The appellate court noted that the statement \u201cappears to be an assertion of fact that, at least in theory, could be verified as either true or false.\u201d Thus, it was not opinion, and could be subject to a claim for defamation if there was no privilege attached to the communication. The court went on to note that under Massachusetts law, a conditional privilege to an otherwise-defamatory statement may attach if the publisher of a statement and the recipient have a common interest in the subject, and the statement at issue was made \u201cto further or protect that interest.\u201d Here, the homeowners and the investigating contractor had a common interest in determining the cause of roof leaks, and the contractor\u2019s statement was made in the process of advancing that common interest. Thus, the statement that a roofing system had been installed over \u201cinsulation that was soaking wet\u201d had a conditional privilege which meant it was not actionable for defamation.<\/p>\n<p>So Company A, who didn\u2019t want a statement made to its former client, must now see that statement published in the court decision, in the law reports and on the internet.<\/p>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lexology.com\/library\/detail.aspx?g=0e5e9363-14e4-4d92-8341-5ac56d849f33&amp;utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&amp;utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+Federal+section&amp;utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&amp;utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2014-11-19&amp;utm_term=\">The irony of defamation lawsuits \u2013 construction edition &#8211; Lexology<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stanley A. Martin | Duane Morris LLP | November 14, 2014 There is a certain irony in any defamation lawsuit, which is a public request for redress arising from a statement the claimant says should not have been made public. Now we have the construction version. Company A sues Company B, claiming statements of B&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/the-irony-of-defamation-lawsuits-construction-edition\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Irony of Defamation Lawsuits \u2013 Construction Edition<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,164,172],"tags":[24,164,27,5841,190],"class_list":["post-228222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-defects","category-construction-dispute","category-construction-law-2","tag-construction-defect","tag-construction-dispute","tag-construction-law","tag-defamation","tag-roof","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Irony of Defamation Lawsuits \u2013 Construction Edition - Advise &amp; Consult, Inc.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/the-irony-of-defamation-lawsuits-construction-edition\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Irony of Defamation Lawsuits \u2013 Construction Edition - Advise &amp; Consult, Inc.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Stanley A. Martin | Duane Morris LLP | November 14, 2014 There is a certain irony in any defamation lawsuit, which is a public request for redress arising from a statement the claimant says should not have been made public. Now we have the construction version. 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