Slander- now what?

[Oski]

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No, I'm not a lawyer. Having a lawyer write her a letter doesn't sound like a bad idea, though. It shouldn't cost too much, and may be enough to shut her up.

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You certainly give sound advice, however. Perhaps you missed your true calling (or, hopefully, found something better to do).

[DarrenX]

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I think to collect any damages for slander, you have to prove that you've been harmed by the false statements. The "hostile work environment" claim to me seems more potentially damaging to your reputation than the claim that you wife hasn't returned calls. However, as you say, proving the first claim to be false is problematic, as anything negative you ever said to her in the course of her employment could be used to support that claim (and the "hostile work environment" could be the basis for a counterclaim if you sue). The "hasn't returned calls" statement, while factually untrue, is not, as I see it especially harmful to your business. You also have to balance whatever damages you might collect against the cost of filing a lawsuit. I think your best course here is to tell your side of the story whenever it comes up.

It would seem from her actions that this employee, whether for good reasons or bad, was not happy working for you. You might want to ask yourself why this is. I'm not saying that you necessarily did anything wrong, but a little introspection might help you improve your employee relations in the future. Or not. Some people just seem to be disgruntled regardless of their situation. It's a shame that she chose to quit without notice and badmouth you rather than simply say, "I quit because I found a better situation", but I'm not sure you have anything to gain and you may have a lot to lose by filing a lawsuit.

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Thanks CORed, I appreciate the response. Just curious, are you a lawyer?

For the record, my GF is in the process of calling our lawyer. If it's not too costly, we're considering having our lawyer send a letter basically stating should slander contine, legal action is an option we're willing to take (albeit a bluff, as I'm sure it wouldn't be worth the time or money). Hopefully at minimum it will encourage her not to continue.

Also, great idea regarding introspection. I just wrote a bunch of crap that she would complain about and how we handled it, but the details don't really matter at this point so I erased it. In all honesty, we believe she left without notice because she felt she was letting us down, and can't handle confrontations. And is a passive-aggressive wh*re. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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I'm a lawyer. You have no case.

However, you can "scare her" into watching her mouth. Have a lawyer write her a letter advising her that she may be potentially liable for some of her statements, etc.

This will probably shut her up.

If you live in CA, I will write the letter for you, gratis.

* By the way, in my experience the things she is saying about you and your shop tend to impact her negatively moreso than you. Most reasonable people can identify when somebody just has an axe to grind and make a reasonable choice based on such. I would be surprised if her comments are damaging your business to any degree.

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Thanks Oski. I'd take you up on that, but I'm in Illinois. I hope you're right about people being smart enough to know what's going on. Just frustrating, as she got the jump on us and has already contacted all her clients. And people tend to believe the first story they hear.

Ah well... we're trying to lure them back in with 50% off all hair services with any other stylist until they find the one they like. Money talks...

[En Passant]

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I think to collect any damages for slander, you have to prove that you've been harmed by the false statements. The "hostile work environment" claim to me seems more potentially damaging to your reputation than the claim that you wife hasn't returned calls. However, as you say, proving the first claim to be false is problematic, as anything negative you ever said to her in the course of her employment could be used to support that claim (and the "hostile work environment" could be the basis for a counterclaim if you sue). The "hasn't returned calls" statement, while factually untrue, is not, as I see it especially harmful to your business. You also have to balance whatever damages you might collect against the cost of filing a lawsuit. I think your best course here is to tell your side of the story whenever it comes up.

It would seem from her actions that this employee, whether for good reasons or bad, was not happy working for you. You might want to ask yourself why this is. I'm not saying that you necessarily did anything wrong, but a little introspection might help you improve your employee relations in the future. Or not. Some people just seem to be disgruntled regardless of their situation. It's a shame that she chose to quit without notice and badmouth you rather than simply say, "I quit because I found a better situation", but I'm not sure you have anything to gain and you may have a lot to lose by filing a lawsuit.

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Thanks CORed, I appreciate the response. Just curious, are you a lawyer?

For the record, my GF is in the process of calling our lawyer. If it's not too costly, we're considering having our lawyer send a letter basically stating should slander contine, legal action is an option we're willing to take (albeit a bluff, as I'm sure it wouldn't be worth the time or money). Hopefully at minimum it will encourage her not to continue.

Also, great idea regarding introspection. I just wrote a bunch of crap that she would complain about and how we handled it, but the details don't really matter at this point so I erased it. In all honesty, we believe she left without notice because she felt she was letting us down, and can't handle confrontations. And is a passive-aggressive wh*re. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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I'm a lawyer. You have no case.

However, you can "scare her" into watching her mouth. Have a lawyer write her a letter advising her that she may be potentially liable for some of her statements, etc.

This will probably shut her up.

If you live in CA, I will write the letter for you, gratis.

* By the way, in my experience the things she is saying about you and your shop tend to impact her negatively moreso than you. Most reasonable people can identify when somebody just has an axe to grind and make a reasonable choice based on such. I would be surprised if her comments are damaging your business to any degree.

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Would it be illegal for her to be calling her clients at her old place in order to get them to come to her new shop?

[DarrenX]

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Would it be illegal for her to be calling her clients at her old place in order to get them to come to her new shop?

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You're probably asking Oski, but I'll give it a go. Assuming it was illegal (I would guess it isn't), it would probably be pretty hard to prove if she did it. Phone records could only show someone called her client, not who did or what was said.

Additionally, we have no contract which has a non-compete clause, which would stop her from taking clients with her. It's really very common to have stylists 'steal' clients from a salon. Just the nature of the business.

[Oski]

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Would it be illegal for her to be calling her clients at her old place in order to get them to come to her new shop?

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You're probably asking Oski, but I'll give it a go. Assuming it was illegal (I would guess it isn't), it would probably be pretty hard to prove if she did it. Phone records could only show someone called her client, not who did or what was said.

Additionally, we have no contract which has a non-compete clause, which would stop her from taking clients with her. It's really very common to have stylists 'steal' clients from a salon. Just the nature of the business.

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No. In services (professional included) the clients usually belong to the individual, not the firm. Of course, there are exceptions to this, and when such is the case, the firm and the individual would have a contract in place.

As stated ... the clients are "hers" and are free to follow her wherever she goes.

If, however, she misappropriated a customer list of the other hair dressers and was contacting them, that would be a problem. In CA that would be covered by the misappropriation of trade secrets statute in the Civil Code. There would be other remedies available as well.

But, of course, in order to invoke the statute, OP would have to meet some requirements to show that the customer list was a bona fide trade secret and that he took appropriate measures to ensure it remained a secret. Even further, he would also have to show that there were specific characteristics about THESE customers that would he uncovered that would not be generally known within the trade, i.e. that a number of these clients go for a "blue-hair special" or whatever.

TL/DW (too long, didn't write)

[JasonK]

There's a lawsuit in either NYC or LA where the family of a dead salon owner is suing the stylists who left after his death and took their clients with them.

[mosdef]

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Fight fire with fire. Tell everyone she has crabs

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Fight fire with a flamethrower. Give her crabs.

[Oski]

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There's a lawsuit in either NYC or LA where the family of a dead salon owner is suing the stylists who left after his death and took their clients with them.

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There are lawsuits for lots of things in BOTH NYC and LA.

[DarrenX]

A couple weeks back one of our worst hairstylists quit, which was nice, because it saved us the trouble of firing her.

She sends us an e-mail stating she didn't authorize a deduction from her last paycheck for her uniform, so she wants her $60 back. Well, she did sign a form in our employee handbook stating that uniforms would indeed be deducted. She sends us a blurb from the Deductions From Wages for Uniforms and Other Facilities Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) which says you can only deduct x amount per paycheck blah blah blah... since she's a commissioned employee, we don't believe this applies, but obvioulsy she believes otherwise.

In all honesty, the $60 bucks isn't a big deal, but here's the twist. We KNOW she's stolen from the cash register several times. Probably $100 total. Additionally, she took a $200 hair dryer with her when she left. So in our last response my GF said it doesn't apply, and talk to our lawyer if you want to discuss further. "And by the way, you're lucky we're not pressing charges". While we never saw her take the money, there were several reasons we knew beyond a reasonable doubt it was her.

She responds simply stating, "I'M NOT SCARED OF YOUR LAWYER!"

Obviously we're not going to do anything regarding her petty theft, but can you believe the nerve of this b*tch? Who's got a good next move?

[NT!]

i would say your best bet is to do something involving the petty theft. the last thing you want is to be dealing with some labor board and bring this stuff up after she's already brought a complaint. do it now and get it documented, she is obviously determined to be a [censored] about this.