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