Law of Tort...Defamation

12. New York Times v Sullivan (502)- First off you need to know that libel is the written defamation of character. A person who believes their name and character have been harmed can sue. In this case, the supreme court declared that freedom of the press takes precedence—at least when the defamed individual is a public official.

In common law, defamation in writing is classified as Libel, and oral defamation as Slander” There are four elements of defamation.

o Defamation – An intentional tort. The reputation of the victim is damaged publicly by untrue statements made by the tort-feezer.

For my argumentation paper, I have chosen to address the issue of libel as it relates to the case of Draker v. Schreiber. Libel is defined as a published false statement that is damaging to a person 's reputation. Draker v. Schreiber was taken up by the Texas state court, on September 1st, 2006. I agree with the court 's decision to not charge the young boys for defamation and intentional emotional distress. Throughout this paper, I will support three arguments, first why the students should have been held responsible for defamation and libel per se, second why the students were not responsible for intentional infliction of emotional distress, and lastly, why I believe the parents were not in question of negligence or

The Malicious Communications Act 1988 (MCA) prohibited sending letters or articles that were offensive, indecent or threatening with the intention of causing distress

done with the unlawful purpose to cause such damage and loss, without right or justifiable cause on the part of the defendants (which constitutes malice); and

Libel tort law is defamation to a person’s reputation by print, signs, effigies, pictures, writing or any communication. The California court decided that because this article was

28. Slander -The action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation

The most famous defamation case, which still sets precedent in today's cases, is New York Times v. Sullivan (1964). New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) is the leading case on the question of defamation liability for media defendants. The case, heard before the Supreme Court, declared that public officials and figures could not recover for an alleged defamation unless they can prove both that the statement was false, and was made with actual malice. This decision prevents the news media from reporting on false or slanderous stories. It protects the country's public icons seeing they are almost always in the spotlight. In addition to defamation hindering media, obscenity and pornography on the net have placed limitations on what some websites may provide in terms of content.

Defamation is defined as a statement that injures another party’s reputation. Defamation includes both written statements, libel, and spoken statements, slander. In order to prove defamation 4 things must be shown: a false statement claiming to be true is made, sharing that information either verbally or through written communication with a third party, fault and damages.

To sum, the case is about an advertising the newspaper included some inaccurate story about the civic leaders, civil right events, and Sullivan. Sullivan (a public official) believed that the defamatory comments that were made of him were making a negative impact on his life, thus he sued the New York times. The court in Alabama at the time ruled “The law … implies legal injury from bare facts of publication itself, falsity and malice are presumed, general damages no need to presume.” Thus, the court from Alabama gave Sullivan a compensation of five hundred thousand dollars. New York times decided to take this case to the supreme court because they believe their 1st amendment rights were being violated. Therefore, a new question arose whether the first amendment protects defamatory, false statements concerning public officials? The court ruled that the 1st amendment does protect the publication of all statements, even false ones, concerning the conduct of a public official except when the statement was made with actual malice. Once again, we notice the irony of freedom of speech the issue is citizens are not informed that under the 1st amendment there is sufficient rights guarantee. It is not solely having the right to express our emotions towards the government, it is to expose information to citizens and have the citizens decided for themselves. Democracy does not work if the government or public official try to hide information from its citizens. Democracy function when there is a clear majority of press that expose the truth and allow people to determine what the issue is. Press must be able to protect us against an overreaching government. Sometimes executive power tries to control the press because they do not want to inform the truth about that for example the Watergates scandal, Edward Snowden, Wiki leaks and

Hate crime generally refers to a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation”, (Hall, 2013).

P is suing for defamation of his reputation. The reporter has a 1st amendment right to freedom of speech. Dr. P also has a constitutional right of not being defamed. In this situation of freedom of and freedom to, I would like to continue talking about the 4th requirement of defamation. I have said the statement is about public interest and or a public figure. In this case Dr. P in my opinion is a public actor. Because of this we have to prove actual malice. (This is not a part of my response… Just talking to you. You said actual malice is harder to prove. I am actually leaning the other way or going back and forth in my head. It would be so much easier to just say that the reporter had a reasonable effort to verify facts. In this case DR. P is a public figure. I could actually argue either way in the case that there is malice or there is not an obvious disregard for the truth. This is a tough question. One in which I wish this were an in seat class.) In this situation the reporter made false statements while recklessly disregarding the truth. The reporter made no reasonable efforts to verify the fact that Dr. P was screaming for blood. The reasonable effort to verify facts usually applies to private citizens and private matters. While Dr. P is a public figure he has less protection as a public figure. I would argue thought that the reporter had a reckless disregard for the truth. The picture he received does in fact place Dr. P at the cockfight. It doesn’t prove that he was screaming for blood. The reporter’s statements are made up. When it was said, “he secretly revels violence” is wrong and fabricated. There is no factual basis in this

Libel simply is "defamation of character by published word", the publishing of falsities to hurt a person's reputation or standing. However, now it is not limited to only printed word as in newspapers or magazines. Slander, which is defined as "defamation of character by spoken word" is now portrayed as a form

By definition defamation is the act of injuring someone’s character or reputation by false statements. Cases of defamation are only considered attacks on if they are made in a vindictive or malicious manner. The person’s name is considered not only personal but proprietary right of reputation. Defamation is synonymous with the words libel and slander in terms of law. Defamation is a term that encompasses both libel and slander. Libel is a term used to describe visual defamation; as in newspaper articles or misleading pictures. Slander describes defamation that you can hear, not see. It is mostly oral statements that tarnish someone’s reputation.