Defamation

Defamation, slander and libel are three words we hear all the time, but aren’t quite sure what constitutes each one.

Defamation is the intentional spreading of falsehoods and lies about someone with the intention being to cause malice or pain. Slander is a form of defamation that’s spread by saying negative and false statements about someone. There’s also libel, which is writing lies about people.

To be more specific, one can be sued for an outright lie or an implied lie. For instance, if you said “John is a pervert”, though technically defamation, it would be hard for John to mound a defense because the personal definition of “pervert” could come into play and mean absolutely nothing. But if you said “John is a pervert who raped this little boy down the street” and there’s no actual proof, suddenly it’s defamation because the intent is to be specific with a claim of something that’s totally false, with the intent to harm John.

There are varying degrees where someone can vent their frustrations and not have it considered as slander, and others where it’s considered as going over the line. An interesting case occurred in the Syracuse, NY area where a man stated he had received bad service at an auto body shop. He decided to vent his complaint online, which was his right to do because it was his experience. However, he then went to the extent of buying multiple domain names and creating negative ads against the company, embellishing bad practices that he assumed they were doing without any proof. The company found out, sued, and it was found that he had defamed the company, was ordered to delete the domain names, and had a monetary settlement issued against him.

Some people might wonder why tabloids don’t get sued more often for some of the things they say that everyone knows aren’t true. A part of it is because it costs a lot of money to fight defamation lawsuits with large companies. A second is because some lawsuits have ended when a judge deemed that a statement was so outrageous that no one would have believed it to be true, especially of a celebrity.

Some celebrities have fought and won defamation lawsuits, however. Carol Burnett won a landmark case against the National Enquirer when they reported that she had been seen out drunk and acting badly at a restaurant with Henry Kissinger. Liberace sued a British publication for printing that he was a homosexual in the 50’s and won, although it turned out decades later to be true. He also sued an American magazine for printing something similar and won that case also. For the most part, however, these stories are ignored by celebrities.