Gilead Beats Defamation Suit by Worker Accused of Sex Harassment

Gilead Sciences Inc. doesn’t have to face a fired employee’s claim that its response to a colleague’s false sexual harassment report about him damaged his reputation, a Virginia federal judge ruled.

The decision Monday reverses course from the US District Court for the Western District of Virginia’s prior decision in Ian Lewis Auckland’s lawsuit, which found he could pursue his defamation claim against the biopharmaceutical company. Auckland’s amended complaint failed to assert that co-defendant Hilary Zachry was acting within the scope of her employment when she made the allegedly bogus report that he sexually harassed her while the two were ...