Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, on its face, the
Speaker 1: legal concept of defamation is not a particularly difficult one
Speaker 1: to grasp. If you say something or publish something that
Speaker 1: damages someone or something else's reputation, that's defamation. As with
Speaker 1: anything surrounding the law, though that seemingly straightforward idea can
Speaker 1: get complicated pretty quickly. Libel, slander, actual malice, the truth,
Speaker 1: and who are what constitutes a public figure all impact
Speaker 1: whether defamation, in the eyes of Lady Justice, has actually
Speaker 1: taken place. Those questions are also why the world is
Speaker 1: up to its French callers and attorneys. We need them
Speaker 1: just to straighten these things out. Still, remembering what has
Speaker 1: to happen first for defamation to take place always helps
Speaker 1: somebody's gut to get hurt. Here's how defamation works. Someone
Speaker 1: makes a statement, the statement is published in one way
Speaker 1: or another, the statement causes injury, the statement is found
Speaker 1: to be false, and the statement does not fall into
Speaker 1: a privileged or protected category. Examples of privileged or protected
Speaker 1: statements include testimonies made during court trials, and sometimes statements
Speaker 1: that are offered as opinions. Although that one's sticky. Simply
Speaker 1: claiming that something is opinion is not automatically a shield
Speaker 1: against defamation charges. The courts will look at the context
Speaker 1: and substance of a statement too. There's no difference legally
Speaker 1: between say, the statements John stole a hundred dollars from
Speaker 1: the corner store last week and in my opinion, John
Speaker 1: stole a hundred dollars from the corner store last week.
Speaker 1: They both could be found libelous. But so the potentially
Speaker 1: defamatory statement in question can be made either orally, which
Speaker 1: is called slander, or can be written, which is called libel.
Speaker 1: In the old days, before publishing written work became as
Speaker 1: easy as sending a tweet, a slander was not considered
Speaker 1: quite as serious as libel. Saying something potentially defamatory in
Speaker 1: a debate on the town hall steps just didn't reach
Speaker 1: as many ears or eyes as the written word could.
Speaker 1: But in these are modern times that has changed. We
Speaker 1: spoke with Greg Lisby, a licensed attorney in the state
Speaker 1: of Georgia and a professor of communication at Georgia State
Speaker 1: University in Atlanta. He said, and these days there really
Speaker 1: is not much difference, because almost all communication is really
Speaker 1: mass So the damage, the injury, the hurt caused by
Speaker 1: an allegedly defamatory statement can come in a lot of forms,
Speaker 1: but it's generally recognized as a hit to someone or
Speaker 1: some entity his reputation. That often can bleed into all
Speaker 1: sorts of other types of damage, including to an individual's
Speaker 1: livelihood or a corporation's ability to do business. Enter the lawyers.
Speaker 1: The heart of defamation cases, the heart of the law
Speaker 1: as a whole, really is getting at the truth. If
Speaker 1: that supposedly defamatory published statement that has caused an injury
Speaker 1: is in fact true, all bets are off. True statements
Speaker 1: cannot be considered defamatory. A Lisbie said, truth is always
Speaker 1: a defense. Maybe not a perfect defense, but truth will
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly get you where you want to be. Let's take
Speaker 1: as an example, the claim of Dominion Voting Systems during
Speaker 1: the heated presidential election of Dominion Voting Systems, which is
Speaker 1: an election technology firm with customers in twenty States and
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico, was the target some potentially defamatory statements from
Speaker 1: the supporters and the legal team of then President Donald Trump. Dominion,
Speaker 1: the president's backers said, was a major force behind fraudulent
Speaker 1: voting that through the election to now President Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: In January, Dominions sued Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump's lawyers,
Speaker 1: for one point three billion dollars in damages. In the suit,
Speaker 1: under a detailed section entitled Factual Allegations, Dominions lawyers laid
Speaker 1: out their case against Giuliani, who railed against Dominion in
Speaker 1: television interviews and while selling products on his podcast. The
Speaker 1: section of the suit was subtitled Giuliani enriches himself by
Speaker 1: falsely claiming that Dominion fixed the election, a claim he
Speaker 1: was not willing to make in court because he knew
Speaker 1: it was false. A jury, if the case gets that far,
Speaker 1: will determine whether the many statements Giuliani made regarding Dominion
Speaker 1: are true or not. For its part, Dominion offers rebuttal
Speaker 1: two charges and others on the company website and claims
Speaker 1: that those falsehoods from Giuliani and others have damaged more
Speaker 1: than reputations. The suit states, as a result of the
Speaker 1: defamatory falsehoods, Dominions founder and employees have been harassed and
Speaker 1: have received death threats, and Dominion has suffered unprecedented and
Speaker 1: irreparable harm Lisbie said, the question the court is going
Speaker 1: to be asking is has their reputation been harmed as
Speaker 1: a company? Is it possible is it likely that people
Speaker 1: will not buy their voting machines based on the fact
Speaker 1: that quote the algorithm has been tampered with or quote
Speaker 1: certain number of votes can be changed easily and secretly.
Speaker 1: The answer is yeah, I think they could win. Getting
Speaker 1: to the truth of an allegedly defamatory statement is a
Speaker 1: step toward legal relief, but it's not everything. The law
Speaker 1: lays out two different standards of proof, depending upon who
Speaker 1: is claiming to have been libeled. A regular joe charging
Speaker 1: defamation has only to show negligence on the part of
Speaker 1: the person who made the statement. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: a public figure, that is to say, a politician, an actor,
Speaker 1: a government official, a sports star who's claiming to be
Speaker 1: defamed must meet a different and higher standard, something known
Speaker 1: as actual malice or a reckless disregard for the truth.
Speaker 1: It's much harder to prove actual malice. Lizby explained, actual
Speaker 1: malice means knowing falsehood did the person know the statements
Speaker 1: were false. Negligence means basically, did the person act in
Speaker 1: such a way where they ignored whether the statements were
Speaker 1: false or not. The courts make it more difficult on
Speaker 1: a public figure for basically two reasons. First, that public
Speaker 1: figures well are public. They've sought out public attention and
Speaker 1: must reasonably expect some of it to be negative. Secondly,
Speaker 1: public figures have big platforms, and us have the voice
Speaker 1: and reach to make their defense without turning to the
Speaker 1: judicial system. Most private citizens don't have that. The courts
Speaker 1: will make the call on whether the person or entity
Speaker 1: bringing the suit is a public figure, so as to
Speaker 1: determine which standard of proof must be met, whatever the
Speaker 1: case proving defamation, Not to mention, recovering actual, presumed or
Speaker 1: punitive damages can be a long, arduous and costly endeavor,
Speaker 1: as attaining justice often it's Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: John Donovan and produced by Tyler Klang. For more on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other curious topics, visit how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Brain Stuff is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Or more podcasts to my heart radio visit
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.