DEFAMATION
Any intentional false communication, either writ-
ten or spoken, that harms a person’s reputation;
decreases the respect, regard, or confidence in
which a person is held; or induces disparaging,
hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelings against
a person.
Defamation may be a criminal or civil
charge. It encompasses both written statements,
known as LIBEL, and spoken statements, called
slander.
The probability that a plaintiff will recover
damages in a defamation suit depends largely on
whether the plaintiff is a public or private figure
in the eyes of the law. The public figure law of
defamation was first delineated in NEW YORK
TIMES V. SULLIVAN, 376 U.S. 254, 84 S. Ct. 710,
11 L. Ed. 2d 686 (1964). In Sullivan, the plaintiff,
a police official, claimed that false allegations
about him appeared in the New York Times, and
sued the newspaper for libel. The Supreme
Court balanced the plaintiff ’s interest in pre-
serving his reputation against the public’s inter-
est in freedom of expression in the area of
political debate. It held that a public official
alleging libel must prove actual malice in order
to recover damages. The Court declared that the
FIRST AMENDMENT protects open and robust
debate on public issues even when such debate
includes “vehement, caustic, unpleasantly sharp
attacks on government and public officials.” A
public official or other plaintiff who has volun-
tarily assumed a position in the public eye must
prove that defamatory statements were made
with knowledge that they were false or with
reckless disregard of whether they were false.
Where the plaintiff in a defamation action is
a private citizen who is not in the public eye, the
law extends a lesser degree of constitutional pro-
tection to defamatory statements. Public figures
voluntarily place themselves in a position that
invites close scrutiny, whereas private citizens
who have not entered public life do not relin-
quish their interest in protecting their reputation.
In addition, public figures have greater access to the means to publicly counteract false
statements about them. For these reasons, a private
citizen’s reputation and privacy interests
tend to outweigh free speech considerations and
deserve greater protection from the courts. (See
Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 94 S. Ct.
2997, 41 L. Ed. 2d 789 [1974]).
Distinguishing between public and private
figures for the purposes of defamation law is
sometimes difficult. For an individual to be considered
a public figure in all situations, the person’s
name must be so familiar as to be a
household word—for example, Michael Jordan.
Because most people do not fit into that category
of notoriety, the Court recognized the limited-
purpose public figure, who is voluntarily
injected into a public controversy and becomes
a public figure for a limited range of issues. Limited-
purpose public figures, like public figures,
have at least temporary access to the means to
counteract false statements about them. They
also voluntarily place themselves in the public
eye and consequently relinquish some of their
privacy rights. For these reasons, false statements
about limited-purpose public figures that
relate to the public controversies in which those
figures are involved are not considered defamatory
unless they meet the actual-malice test set
forth in Sullivan.
Determining who is a limited-purpose public
figure can also be problematic. In Time, Inc. v.
Firestone, 424 U.S. 448, 96 S. Ct. 958, 47 L. Ed. 2d
154 (1976), the Court held that the plaintiff, a
prominent socialite involved in a scandalous
DIVORCE, was not a public figure because her
divorce was not a public controversy and
because she had not voluntarily involved herself
in a public controversy. The Court recognized
that the divorce was newsworthy, but drew a distinction
between matters of public interest and
matters of public controversy. In Hutchinson v.
Proxmire, 443 U.S. 111, 99 S. Ct. 2675, 61 L. Ed.
2d 411 (1979), the Court determined that a scientist
whose federally supported research was
ridiculed as wasteful by Senator William Proxmire
was not a limited-purpose public figure
because he had not sought public scrutiny in
order to influence others on a matter of public
controversy, and was not otherwise well-known.
FURTHER READINGS
Collins, Matthew. 2001. The Law of Defamation and the
Internet. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Friedman, Jessica R. 1995. “Defamation.” Fordham Law
Review 64 (December).
Jones, William K. 2003. Insult to Injury: Libel, Slander, and
Invasions of Privacy. Boulder, Colo.: Univ. Press of Colorado.
Smolla, Rodney A. 1999. Law of Defamation. 2d ed. St. Paul,
Minn.:West Group.
CROSS-REFERENCES
Freedom of the Press; Libel and Slander.
