Papp V Stokes Bad Job Reference Is Not Defamation

In this article by Monkhouse-admin, it gave an example of a case between Papp v Stokes, 2017 ONSC 2357 about protection after termination. Adam Papp was recently terminated from his position as a staff economist that he had for almost three years at Strokes economic consulting Inc, so he was in need of looking for a new job and references for his ongoing job search. Mr. Papp asked Mr. Stokes to be his reference and he later agreed. This happened since Mr. Stokes was willing to help former employee Mr. Papp find a new job since he would know his capabilities when working from previous experience.

Later, Mr. Papp found a position at the Government of Yukon which he successfully made it all the way up to the recruiting and interview process. Mr. Papp ended up being ranked as one of the top candidates.  Therefore, all that was left was the reference check to be done for him so he could be considered for the job. When Stokes economic consulting got a call from the company Government of Yukon Mr. Stokes main focus was to get an opportunity to praise Mr. Papp with all the technical capabilities that he put out for their company. However, it didn’t go like that since the Government of Yukon was mostly interested in hearing if Mr. Papp cooperated and got along with others well when he's working. However, the truth was he didn’t and Mr. Stokes didn’t feel it was right to lie, so he told the honest truth because that’s what references are supposed to do. Since Strokes economic consulting Inc was in a setting of a small office Mr. Papp tended not to get along with his other coworkers, so the reference came out in a bit of a mix at best, and Mr. Papp ended up not getting the job in the end.

When Mr. Papp found out he didn’t get the job he then sued Mr. Stokes for $800,000.00. This happened because Mr. Papp brought additional action of defamation against Mr. Stoke for giving him a bad reference. Mr. Papp argued that when he worked at the company this issue with not getting along with others wasn’t brought to the proper attention. However, the courts ruled that although the reference check wasn’t positive it was the full truth and Mr. Papp’s defamation claim was dismissed completely since Mr. Stokes wasn’t liable. Also,  Mr. Stoke ended up having several witnesses that were able to provide information and state his referencing wasn’t being implied maliciously. 

In the case above it shows that the content of references can be a fatal problem to its employee's prospects even if they are the best qualified for the job. Since it's unpredictable what they are going to reference and ask about it’s good to have knowledge in all areas that could be covered, therefore, asking for advice before leaving the job would be a thought. In this case, Mr. Papp may have not had any idea that an issue presenting towards attitude existed, so it later made him suffer in his job search. Furthermore, most cases of employment are often settled with parties outside of the court and most of the time employees have an opportunity in the say that goes into their future references by doing it this way it helps to prevent the situation that happened to Mr. Papp to happen to you.