Slander, defamation of character, liable

[dweaver63]

My question is: Do I have grounds for a Slander or liable, defamation of character suit, against a man, and since he was (is) an officer of an organization and the slander is in reference to my service in the organization, would a suit include the organization? The resulting defamation of character has resulted in my not being able to be re-elected to the board.

Here is the history:
I have been a volunteer of a non profit organization for many years. I was elected to the board of Directors of the organization 5 years ago for a three year term. Two of those three years I served as Treasurer. While treasurer, we received our 501(c) 3 and updated our accounting to GAAP and 501, (form 990) chart of accounts and basically bought our accounting system current and legal. We also brought our taxes up to date and inline and filed taxes for the first time in about 15 years. Some of the past directors in that time period had the opinion that we were non profit so we didn't have do taxes and were just not going to. To the point: I was relatively proud of the accomplishments and the organization now had a better understanding of their financial world.

One of the other directors disagreed with some of our methods and coding because it didn't show the P&L the way HE thought it should be among other things. This man in his dislike for me spread rumors’ and told lies about me and raised accusations with the general membership to ensure I was not re-elected to the board. He has been successful in is his bashing well enough to keep me from getting elected for two years.

Upon ensuring I was not re-elected, he was elected treasurer. Over the past year he has made comments to numerous people stating "We are going to make money now that Weaver is gone." Two people have told me personally, he said to them "we should do well this year now that the crooks are gone". Crooks referring to my wife and me.

He (as my replacement) has done things such as inflating damage repairs from a hail storm to get more money out of the Insurance claim then buried it in the general fund. He shifts money from account to account to reduce taxable income and to inflate the appearance of profit. Should the State AG's office get involved they would have much more to worry about than I.

My understanding off non profit is that the organization is liable for the actions of its directors...

Thanks for any information I can get.

It would seem you indeed may have a case against the person...If someone publicly says or writes anything factually untrue and it damages you, you indeed can sue for slander, libel, defamation, interference with business relations etc. -- or at least threaten to do so and give a warning.