A Massachusetts jury recently awarded a plaintiff more than $2 million in damages on malicious prosecution and defamation claims in a case that highlights the caution with which employers should engage the police in workplace investigations.
In Moran v. Khalil, et al., a longtime employee came to be suspected by her colleagues of having taken $18,000 in cash and checks that never made it into the company’s coffers.
The defendants — three company officials — argued that when they went to the local police department to report the findings of an internal investigation, they had both the right and a valid reason to do so. After making their initial report to the police, they left the police alone to draw their independent conclusions, they said.
But the plaintiff convinced the jury that not only was the defendants’ report more likely than not false, it was made with an improper, ulterior motive: to shift blame away from themselves for “mismanagement, incompetence, and dereliction of duty.”
On Dec. 13, a unanimous eight-member jury found that the plaintiff had proved both her malicious prosecution and defamation claims, and awarded $515,000 for economic harm, $1 million for emotional harm, and an additional $500,000 for harm to her reputation.
While working for Pentucket Medical Associates from 2008 to 2017, plaintiff Susan Moran was promoted several times, given added responsibilities and corresponding salary increases and bonuses.
In 2016 and 2017, she...
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