I applied at a job yesterday. My friend Dave introduced me to one of the head managers. I handed the manager my resume and visited with him for a while. Today I call Dave to talk about an unrelated item and he mentions to me that my previous employer when called for job verification, said many "really bad" things about me. Now I am not going to be hired due to the negative comments from my previous co-manager that I did not get along with. I was under the impression that you could be sued if you make comments about a previous employee that prevents them from getting work. What exactly are they allowed to say? When I worked for the government, they would just verify whether you were ever employed their and the dates, regardless of you beging a good or bad employee. What avenues can I take?

A negative reference is NOT illegal. ONLY a false reference is illegal. There is nothing in the law that says a reference becomes illegal if it results in the employee not being offered the job.

An employer is allowed to say anything that is true, anything that they have an honest and good faith belief is true, or anything that represents their honest opinion.

"We think Joe did a lousy job on the Johnson account" is legal, even if Joe thinks he did a great job on the Johnson account and even if the Johnsons agree with Joe. (In which case I would recommend asking the Johnsons for a reference.)

"We fired Joe for stealing" is illegal, unless Joe really was fired for stealing (and the employer has proof of it).

The fact that your previous employer chose to only provide dates of employment does not mean that other employers are required to do likewise.

OK then, I had never even so much as had a write up the entire time I worked there. I started as part time employee, was promoted to Assistant Manager within 3 months, and promoted to the Head Manager not a year later. I left for another job, wasn't fired, and gave notice. I can even prove in black and white sales records that show how well the sales improved after each promotion. The only reason my co-manager had to say anything negative is that we don't get along. The only issues I had with my co-manager is that he was constantly paying cash out of the petty cash fund to his friends for uneccessary side jobs and he couldn't keep his hands of the girls that worked there. I reported him directly to the District Manager in Denver and nothing was done. Hence my reason for leaving because I didn't want to be associated with that kind of place as my reputation is important to me. Does that change anything?

No. If the opinions asserted by your former co-manager were his accurate opinions, that would be perfectly fine. The problem is that you do not know "exactly" what was said. Maybe in the future, you could provide your district manager's phone number for references.

Well I am not a lawyer but I know that that is not entirely correct. Here is the definition of slander. A type of defamation. Slander is an untruthful oral (spoken) statement about a person that harms the person's reputation or standing in the community. Because slander is a tort (a civil wrong), the injured person can bring a lawsuit against the person who made the false statement.

But it has to be a FALSE statement. The laws of this country allow someone to state their opinion unchallenged by legal action. Just because it is negative doesn't make it slander.