The Virginia Defamation Law Blog
False police reports are privileged against defamation claims. But the precise nature of that privilege is not always clear. Is it a qualified privilege, subject to being lost through abuse or bad faith, or is it an absolute immunity that insulates all statements to police against defamation claims no matter the intentions of the speaker? The distinction can make all the difference in cases where reports are made to the police not for the purpose of actually reporting crime, or to enforce obedience to the law, or to see that guilty people are punished, but for the purpose of harassing another individual. The nature of the privilege for defamatory statements made to the police will generally depend on the context and timing in which the statements at issue were made.
In Virginia, reports to the police enjoy at least conditional protection. The uncertainty lies in whether that protection can be elevated to “absolute” status. A qualified privilege exists where a communication is made in good faith, on a subject in which the communicating party has an interest or owes a duty, to a party who has a corresponding interest or duty. Citizens are generally thought to have an interest, if not a duty, in keeping the streets safe by identifying potential criminals to the police, and the police obviously have a corresponding interest in receiving that information, so statements made to the police meet the basic test for qualified privilege. (See also Marsh v. Commercial & Sav. Bank of Winchester, 265 F. Supp. 614, 621 (W.D. Va. 1967) (finding statements made by bank tellers to the police were protected by qualified privilege)).