The Pros And Cons Of 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.

Lois Simmie writes without the use of defamatory language, using nothing but facts received by

Last week, the court saw the dismissal of a defamation lawsuit filed by the now-Catholic priest, Auxiliary Justice Malcom Gray ruling the reports published by News Corporation Australia as ‘substantially true’.

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

The jury in Alabama agreed with Sullivan and found that the libelous action was in breach of Constitutional protections of speech and press. The jury in the circuit court awarded Sullivan five hundred thousand dollars in damages. This was the initial ruling against the New York Times who had lost. Sullivan had claimed he was libeled in the advertisement called Heed Their Rising Voices. In the libel action claim Sullivan the third paragraph in the advertisement read as follows “In Montgomery, Alabama, after students sang “My country tis of thee” on state capitol steps, their leaders were expelled from school and, truckloads of police armed with shotguns and tear gas ringed the Alabama State College Campus. When the entire student body protested by

The majority consisted of Justice Earl Warren, Hugo L. Black, William O. Douglas, Tom C. Clark, John M. Harlan II, William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart, Byron R. White, and Arthur J. Goldberg. The majority opinion was made by William J. Brennan, to protect the right to freedom of expression in the First Amendment, the Court rule that the criminal libel law should follow the same standards as civil libel law. True statements regardless of its malicious value will not be considered libel. While statements that are intentionally false or created with a rash disregard for the truth are considered to be libel and can be punished by the law. The restriction was modeled from a prior case, New York Times v. Sullivan, freedom of speech protection should not be exercise separately to a civil libel statute than to a criminal case. The Court concluded that the Louisiana Criminal Defamation Statute was unlawfully broad and that it breaches the protections of the First Amendment’s free

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

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

Intentionally publishing something that puts another in an unfavorable or untruthful light, though it is true

For a plaintiff to win a case they need the following. Show that they are

The comments Joe Stucko made are clearly factual. Assuming that they are made with knowledge of falisity or reckless disregard of the truth, then Stucko is liable for defamation. However, the truth is an absolute defense for defamation- so, if Stucko’s statements are true, then he is not liable for defamation.

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

A legal claim based on defamation entitles the victim to recover aginst the person making the defamatory remarks or their emotional damages. On top of that the victim could be able to sue for punishment dammages. Defamation can be proved on a person’s word alone. It is much more successful to have some sort of evidence like a paper, article, an e-mail, etc. In a defamation case damages do not have to be proven during the testomony. The plaintiff dose not have to testify that they were emotionaly destroyed or had to seek profesional help. The defamatory statement dose not have to be published out side of a company or group of people. Internal attacks can also be concidered defamatory. Each repition of the remark can be concidered a new attack. One of the biggest problems in proving defamation is that in some cases a person may have privlage to make the remarks. During a judicial proceding absolute privlage is given. Even if the remark is false the it can not be concidered slanderous in that setting. The defamer can make intentionaly untrue statements free of legal reprehension. A person with even a limited privlage such as an employer may still lose their privlage if the statement is made with malicious intent and reckless disregard.

The case Chaplinsky vs. New Hampshire stated that there are some classes of speech that are limited. They are the lewd, the obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting words. When spoken they encourage fighting and so is a disturbance of peace (Stone, Seidman). Therefore, the courts have created laws that will protect a person against libel and slander.