Truth still a defense against libel claims in Massachusetts

The Massachusetts Appeals Court has tossed a libel suit by a car-detailing firm against a lawyer for a state car-dealer association because he was merely stating the truth when he advised members the company and some of its customers were under investigation by the federal Labor Department.

Kilnapp Enterprises, which provides car-detailing services to car dealers across New England, sued the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association and lawyer Joseph Ambash after Ambash wrote in an association newsletter and on the association Web site in 2013 that a Labor Department probe into overtime issues at Kilnapp could leave members vulnerable to their own investigations, and that in fact the feds had levied assessments against some car dealers under the theory they were jointly responsible for detailers not getting paid overtime for work in their shops.

In its suit, Kilnapp said Ambash was getting all defamatoryby only mentioning Kilnapp and not other detailers also under investigation, and that he was ruining its perfectly good relationship with dealers.

In its ruling, the appellate court said Ambash wrote nothing libelous: The Labor Department was investigating Kilnapp and some dealers were coming under Labor Department scrutiny. But even if they weren't, Kilnapp provided no proof Ambash wrote what he did in "reckless disregard" of the facts. And the fact that he didn't mention other detailers doesn't detract from the fact that what he wrote about Kilnapp was true, the court said.

And while Ambash did not mention other detailers by name, the court said, he did caution his readers to carefully scrutinize any other detailing companies they might look at hiring, in case they also came under investigation.

Because we conclude that there were no false statements actionable in a claim for defamation, and that, read as a whole, the publications were not actionable as defamatory, dismissal of the defamation claim was appropriate. This conclusion also applies to the commercial disparagement claim, with respect to which the standards regarding falsity and intent are the same.