An employers' association has a reciprocal interest with its members sufficient to establish qualified privilege when communicating about the termination of a senior employee and suspected misuse of confidential information, but that privilege is defeated where the dominant purpose of the publication is to stifle competition from the former employee's new business venture rather than to inform members. A draft letter discovered in the publisher's records, authored by the same person who authored the defamatory publication, is admissible as evidence of malice even where it was never sent. A new argument regarding proof of corporate state of mind for malice cannot be raised for the first time on appeal where it was not raised at trial.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 5 later cases that cite this judgment.
2 of the 5 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.