Can Internal Documents be Used in a Defamation Suit?

Many employers have probably never considered the possibility that a supervisor's negative performance review of another employee, leading to the employee's termination but never circulated outside the office, could support a defamation claim. After all, most employees are presumed to be employed at-will, leaving their employers free to terminate them for any reason, or for no reason at all.

Negative performance reviews are quite common in the workplace, and courts generally refuse to sit as super-personnel departments, re-examining every termination decision made by employers. But one recent decision by an Illinois court reminds us that negative performance reviews and other internal memorandums can lead to liability for employers in extreme cases.