DEFAMATION: The Starbucks Manager Accused Of Racism Is Probably About To Be A MILLIONAIRE

The Daily Caller reports:

If, hypothetically, you kick a man out of your store because he’s taking up valuable space without buying anything — which is your right — and then your company fires you, calls you reprehensible, says you broke policy and institutes racial bias training, then your company is no longer simply voicing its opinion that you are racist.

It is saying it had policies you objectively broke, and it’s effectively denying (through omission) that the customers were trespassing at all. Those are implied factual assertions, and they can form the basis of a defamation suit.

It might be argued that because the manager has not been publicly named by Starbucks, she doesn’t have a defamation case. After all, defamation is all about losing reputation in your community — and you can’t lose reputation if you’re anonymous.

But Hylton’s name was apparently quickly determined by media outlets based on information provided by Starbucks. And her friends and coworkers certainly know who she is, and they are seeing the thousands upon thousands of tweets and official statements that she is a racist and an awful human being who should never find employment again. That’s enough to trigger the protections of defamation law — particularly for private citizens.

Imagine that.