Law for Business 10th Edition by James Barnes,Terry Dworkin,Eric Richards

Exercise 10

A reporter interviewed the manager of a Wal-Mart store in a suburb of Portland, Maine, about a tongue-in-cheek ad campaign the local retailer Levinsky's ran comparing its operation to Wal-Mart's. Among other things, the manager said that Levinsky's puts callers "on hold for 20 minutes" or never answers at all, and that it is a "trashy" store. Levinsky's sued Wal-Mart after the remarks appeared in a Portland business magazine. Were the manager's statements defamatory?