Recently, I heard that someone was being sued by another employee, because the one employee thought her colleague was stealing. So, she mentioned it to her boss. Her boss then turned around and confronted the other employee by saying that his colleague said that he was stealing.
Now, the man is suing the woman for loss of face (fame).
This is the most absolute stupid thing that I’ve heard of. This means that anyone can steal from the company because no one can turn them in.
This means no one can call each other names. If a taxi driver says something to me in the street that borders on me losing face, I can sue him?
Is this kind of stupid and pathetic lawsuit possible?
Lawsuits should make sense. Suing for loss of money or credibility, which will eventually cause someone to lose money is understandable. However, a lawsuit must be for something more than accusations and investigations. A lawsuit should represent something far more significant than someone losing a little face. There are other ways to confront this matter. But, once a lawsuit is initiated, there can’t be any peace.
In any case, I think it should be a lot more than accusations flying around. At my company, there were meetings in which engineers questioned the credibility of other departments and engineers. Even managers complained about each other’s performance.
To take this case to the absurd: I could say the KMT were just a bunch of murders and if a third party heard it, then the KMT could sue me because I have no evidence to back it up, i.e. pictures, recordings, etc…
To sum this up, legal proceedings should not be allowed to waste taxpayers money or time, because someone thinks that he or she needs to regain some face
If as you said they were unfounded, then his or her manager could simply address the employee making the accusations and solve the problem easily.
Most companies have boxes set up for these kinds of reports so that they can catch people taking advantage of the company. But, in this case, we are not talking about unfounded accusations. We are talking about accusations founded on evidence. i.e You were the only one running the machine that day. Of course, an act of God could have happened. However, what happens when the act of God occurs daily or every other day. Or if you’re the only one in the room when the item disappears or is returned due to a report that it’s missing. Yes, maybe a ghost did do it. But I would doubt it!
What I saw in the U.S. came from working with unions. One union member was late for about 30 minutes every day. Strangely though, on his record, he was never late. After hearing a complaint from a non-union employee and investigation occurred. We found out that the union members were clocking in and out for each other. In this way, they were working an hour to an hour and a half less each employee, every day. If it hadn’t been for this complaint, it would have gone on for a long time.
Basically, these employees were helping each other steal from the company.
If this case were applied to Taiwan, the union members would have the right to sue the accuser for loss of face, which in my opinion would be pathetically stupid.
I would have to check with my judge students but I think it falls under some defamation cause of action. Next week my classes get back in full swing and I will find out. I thought I remember one of my judge students basically using this formula:
defamation=loss of face
but again let me check. Oh and I should mention, although you maybe already aware of this, “cursing” (in a very broad sense of that word) someone out is/can be a crime in Taiwan. I know that because I was called upon as a expert witness for english language cursing (all my students know I am a master of foul language) ; the question was:
is calling someone an asshole, cursing?
It was a real case too, some foreigner calling a local an asshole in public. As to the issue of whether truth is a defense, that I do not know.