Former Employer Slandering Me To New Hires And Others

[wolves01]

I worked for a large inventory service in Wisconsin for almost six years. In that time I went from an auditor to team leader to supervisor to area manager. The only position above mine in our office was district manager. I finally resigned from that job in 2003.

Immediately after resigning my position there, I heard a lot of stories about the things that I had supposedly done wrong and about how I was such a horrible manager. I have ignored them so far. Now, ....5 years later, a friend of mine applied to work for this same inventory service and the manager in charge of hiring made negative comments about me and the way I worked as a manager. She mentioned me by name and caustically called my teams "slaves."

The truth is, and I have several former employees that would make statements to this effect: is that I would do anything for them inside or outside of work if it was in my power to do so and that's where my teams' extreme loyalty came from.

I want to know if there is any legal way to make this woman stop slandering me to former and possible new hires?

[LawResearcherMissy]

You may be able to sue for defamation, provided that you can prove that false and defamatory statements were made.

[cbg]

But if the negative comments are opinion in nature, then you can't. The employer is entitled to state his opinion, whether it reflects badly on you or not.