Question about defamation law

petergriffone

Hi all, looking for a bit of opinion on my situation.

Let's say 7 years ago I did something kind of shameful after which I ended up losing half of my friends and people stopped talking to me.

It was super shameful which still haunts me to this day and is embarrassing whenever I come across any of those past friends/people.

I mean yes the other party could've sued me via Civil law (defamation act) but statue of limitations states that period for action is 1 year which is long expired now and everything seems to be calm now and forgotten (I settled it with other party/person so they had nothing against me and forgiven me).

Now it's 7 years later - what if someone who knows about that story (not the party against which it happened but lets say their relative of friend) comes to my work place or even tells someone from my work place about it and I end up losing job.

I know defamation act is there but does it cover this case where it's not a false statement/accusation but a fact?

drunkmonkey

Can you claim defamation for telling a true story about someone, I wouldn't have thought so.

amcalester

It’s not defamation if it’s true.

28064212

Defamation act does not apply if you're not contesting the truth of the statements. However, if someone was deliberately going out of their way to bring up such an incident in order to cause you harm, there could possibly be a harrassment charge levied against them. Also, if the incident doesn't have some relation to your job, it's very hard to see how you could be fired e.g. it might be possible if the incident involved financial misconduct, and you now work in a bank

* Not a lawyer