Exam 5: Defamation

Jill Tidd has a messy break-up with her boyfriend. She decides to post all sorts of horrible things about him on social networking sites where they have mutual friends. Some of what she says are false statements of fact that would damage his reputation. Because Tidd has made the statements in an online public forum that is understood to be open, she would not be liable for libel.

If police arrested a local politician for publishing on social media unfounded allegations of embezzlement against the sheriff, the offense charged most likely would be ___ .

Local police officer Hugh Niform arrests Wally Ball for public intoxication. Hugh takes Wally downtown to the jail, writes up the arrest report and files it. A few hours later Wally's attorney arrives and is able to produce medical evidence showing Ball had a medical condition and it was a mistaken prescription that caused the intoxicating effect and that he was not drinking or taking any illegal drugs. The changes are dropped. The arrest report is still on record. If Ball chooses to, he could win a libel lawsuit against Officer Niform for falsely accusing him of being intoxicated.

The local newspaper runs a story that John Smith earns a second income at night as a high-paid escort. The next day the paper realizes that it made a horrible mistake and that, in fact, it is John Smyth (different spelling) who is an escort. The paper immediately runs a retraction and apology, even before the wrongly-identified John Smith is aware of it. Because the newspaper corrected its error before he filed a suit, the paper will be protected from a libel suit by Smith.

The defamation defense contending all sides of a story were impartially conveyed without harmful intent is called __ .

The landmark case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) established a standard of fault for defamation claims filed by public officials in civil court known as ____.

A rule used by some courts to separate defamatory statements from acceptable expressions is the ___.

The required element in libel claims proving the defendant conveyed false and harmful information about the plaintiff's personal reputation to a third party is ___ .

Holding up a person's reputation to ridicule, scorn or contempt to a respectable part of the community defines the tort of ___ .

Chanda Leer was a communication law student at your school years ago. She writes a novel (that means fiction) about college life. In it, she describes a professor that sounds a lot like the popular mentor, Dr. Sue Yoo, but Leer has the novel's character changing students' grades in exchange for bribes, which the novel claims are used to fund trips to Asia. Dr. Yoo has never accepted any bribes, so this information - if applied to her - is false. According to precedent, if Yoo sues Leer, the professor will lose because works clearly labeled as a fiction and never used the name, Sue Yoo.

Two students bump into each other in the student union cafeteria and spill their trays. Food goes everywhere, but senior Frank Lee Mydeer decides he needs to bump back harder. He hurls insults at shy, freshman Casper Milquetoast using every epithet he can conceive of for the accident. Since the younger guy is redheaded and overweight, Mydeer throws a few darts at those personal traits as well. A crowd gathers around to see how Milquetoast has been humiliated -- so much so he drops out of school the next month. Obviously he suffered injury, so Milquetoast should win his defamation suit against Mydeer.

The revolutionary principle of making truth a defense against libel charges came to light in ___ .

Phil A. Dendron is a student in your class. One evening while sitting around in a local bar, students begin discussing their classes. Phil tells everyone, "The communication law class is the pits. I haven't learned a thing in there. I think [INSERT FACULTY MEMBER'S NAME HERE] is the worst teacher I've ever had. He only works a couple of hours each day, is never in his office, and I think he got his PhD from a mail order catalog." As much as Phil might upset the faculty member cited, he will easily win any defamation lawsuit against him because his remarks are protected statements of opinion.

The breach of a duty resulting in reasonably foreseeable harm is known in civil law as

WONK reporter Bess Twishes uncovers some information that State Senator Rhoda Camel has been accepting bribes. Twishes has made two recordings of conversations with two different sources who accuse the Senator. Assume for a moment that the senator has NOT accepted bribes. The story is worded, "According to two different sources, she has accepted bribes." If Camel sues for libel, WONK and Twishes will be able to successfully defend themselves by showing that the report is true because two different sources did, in fact, make the accusations.

The court-ordered award not intended to make the plaintiff whole, but to act as a deterrent against this sort of offensive conduct by others is called ___ .

A major accident occurred on a local street just as Frieda Wander is walking by. There are serious injuries, but Wander kept walking. A videographer happened to be at the scene and captured the whole thing on tape. After the story airs on WOOP-TV, Hugh Bagawind goes to his social media and posts Wander was immoral to have walked by such a scene without stopping to help. Wander receives his post and files a defamation suit against Bagawind. Now the court must decide what fault she has to prove against him. In this case, she would be a public figure because of her location at an important news story.

In libel law, a defendant cannot be found liable for defamation if his/her statement is held to be ____ .

Monetary compensation designed to remedy calculable losses suffered by the plaintiff is called ___ .

In libel law, the requirement of identification means the defamation is of and concerning the ____ .