[tn] Would This Qualify As Defamation?

Back in 2023, someone i know was posted to a local “Are we Dating the Same Guy” Facebook group. This post was created by one of his ex’s friends (ex is his child’s mother). In the post it makes allegations of some pretty serious domestic abuse. Calls him a psychopath and called out his place of business.

All of these allegations, were proven false and thrown out in court as it was clear that his ex had lied. She had even filed the initial warrant that claimed domestic abuse and tried to withdraw it days later.

However, as they do coparent a child they unfortunately will always have to be in communication with one another. During a text exchange his ex got heated and messaged him, “keep pushing me bitch my friends are on standby to trash you on social media again”.

I know with some of these defamation cases against the “Are we dating the same guy” groups they are dismissed because it’s hard to qualify what has been said as defamation. But in this case it’s clear that the post was meant to be harmful to him along with the confirmation of involvement from his ex.

He had honestly kind of forgotten about this post and how damaging it was to him briefly that summer. But the other day, his co-worker was telling him about a guy they used to work with getting put on blast in that group and how everyone on his team was talking about it. The way it completely changed his coworker’s opinion of that individual made him realize that this post could truly have long term effects on a career he's working very hard to find success in.

Would this classify as a defamation case? He found a Reddit post earlier that had instructions on how best to get facebook involved to remove the post and he executed those steps. But that post did cause a rift at that job that was mentioned and he would almost like to try to get back lost wages. Also, the admin of the group refused to take the post down so that could implicate her as well - I would think.

I look forward to getting some feedback and insight on how this would be viewed in the courts.