Can you sue for slander?

Question

friends husband was accused of attempted rape but cleared of all charges but now the lady is going to my friends wife's job and telling people that he is in prison for raping her. Is there anything they can do about what this lady is doing. He is not in prison and was never found guilty of anything

Answer 1

Concur with STAT, doesn't sound like enough to qualify as slander; however, the woman should file a report of being harassed at work with the police and see about getting an restraining order against the woman and she should talk to her supervisor about barring the woman from entering the premises and if she comes in again, she can be taken to jail for tresspassing.

Answer 2

Tricky one.

Defamation is complex anyways, but there's really not enough information here to tell one way or another.

Ex.  If the husband was the kind of guy who made a lot of suggestive comments to women, or acted swarmy a lot or something... then no, probably not.  He'd have to prove his reputation was damaged,  and in a case like that, it'd be hard to.

If there was an actual trial for rape, then probably no again.  Once again you'd have to prove his reputation was damaged, and if a court found enough evidence to go to trial, then it'd be hard to win the defamation suit again.  (See Simpson, OJ. - Could try to sue any of thousands of people who call him a killer publically.  But not much chance of him winning anything.)

Of course, I'm not assuming either of these are the case.  (Like I said, not enough information in the question.)  But you really have to prove that it's something bigger than gossip.  Which might be harder if the lady in question herself didn't get into any trouble for bringing false charges in the first place, if she's the one who brought the rape charges.

Still a little weird though... Why would you lie and say someone was in prison, when they're not?  It's not like that's something that's all that hard to check.  If she were to say he WAS in prison once, that's one thing, but currently in prison?  I'm not sure you could even sue for that part of it...

Answer 3

Yea. Idk what it was called, but it's illegal to lie about someone to make them look bad... you don't go to jail or anything but you get a fine. Tabloids deal with it a lot.

Answer 4

yes you can if you have proof. I have a cousin and when we were in high school she had a bunch of girls that were very mean to her and wrote her threatening notes she sued them all and won because she kept the notes . Good luck

Answer 5

Yes, defamation of character.  He and his wife should file a restraining order against her to keep her away from their friends and co-workers.

Answer 6

I'm pretty sure you can. You should go see a lawyer to determine if you have a strong enough case though.