Misrepresentation About Ex-Employees May Be Criminal Libel

Cal. Labor Code § 1050 provides,

Any person, or agent or officer thereof, who, after having discharged an employee from the service of such person or after an employee has voluntarily left such service, by any misrepresentation prevents or attempts to prevent the former employee from obtaining employment, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Mead v. Bev. Hills Unif. School Dist. (Cal. Super. Ct. June 24, 2026)—a civil case—concluded that this covers any employees as agents, and can cover publishing material on YouTube, on the theory that “members of the public” who can view the material “would also include prospective employers.” (Cal. Labor Code § 1054 makes § 1050 violations civilly actionable as well as criminally punishable.)

The fact pattern was that Mark Mead, a school district director of school safety, alleged that Carey, a journalism teacher, manipulated video of Mead to purport to show that he was choking a student. Mead was fired, and then sued the school district and Carey for defamation and related claims. The court allowed the § 1050 claim to go forward, and in the process it interpreted § 1050 in a way that would mean criminal punishment in such a situation would be allowed as well.

Sec. 1051 also provides that it’s a misdemeanor to “permit an agent … or employee to commit a violation of section[] 1050.” California has generally abolished criminal libel, but this statute remains in effect. And I expect it would be consistent with the First Amendment, if read (as many criminal statutes are) to implicitly require a mental state of recklessness or knowledge as to the elements, including the “misrepresentation” element.

Arkansas Code Ann. § 11-3-202 likewise provides,

In this state, every person who shall send … any false statement for the purpose of preventing another person from obtaining employment in this state or elsewhere shall, upon conviction, be adjudged guilty of a misdemeanor.

There might be similar results under some other state anti-blacklisting statutes, though I’m not sure. Of course, there’s the separate question whether prosecutors would be willing to bring charges under the statute; I know of no past criminal prosecutions, though of course some such prosecutions might happen without leaving an easily findable trace.

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