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Can I be sued for calling a person a liar and/or incompetent?
Anonymous2 views3 answers
A local city official lied to me and a neighbor. I've written a letter to our mayor about the incident, and called the man a liar, and said that 'if he's not a liar, then he's incompetent. I have it ready to email to the mayor, one other city official and a copy to the other neighbor involved in the incident.
I have actually had a jury trial over a defamation case which is something very very few attorneys can say. The ONLY defense to defamation (the word encompasses both libel [written] and slander [spoken]) is truth. He would absolutely have to prove, beyond a preponderance of the evidence, which is the legal standard, that what you said was false and has no truth in it. Doesn't sound like that's a problem. If you're writing letters, it is libel. But the reality is, no matter how pissed off this guy gets, the odds are greatly stacked against him suing you. First off, no lawyers will take this on a contingency fee, meaning he has to come up with a big retainer and pay it up front knowing his chances of winning aren't good. You know the reason lawyers dont take defanation cases on contingencies? Because they're damn near impossible to defend. If there is ANY truth to what you wrote and I'm guessing there is, than guess what - 1st amendment, baby. You can tell the truth and the onus is on him to prove it is false. and I almost guarantee he won't have a lawyer defending him. And I have to respectfully disagree with the attorney who answered before me. Just because your "conscious" is telling you not to, does not mean you're wrong and you should give up on something you firmly believe in because your "conscious" gives you problems. Sorry - I'm not trying to be condascending, but 'conscious' means aware; 'conscience' is the word you wanted. Sorry, I'm really not trying to be an ass%$#@, but i would want to know if i were you.
So listen...my advice...if you want it...sue away. Longshot you lose. If this helped you at all or was the most helpful, please mark it as such. I would greatly appreciate you taking 5 seconds to thank me for taking 15 minutes answering you.
A city official, if an elected official, is almost always considered a public figure which means that in order to prevail against you, the claimant would have to meet the very high evidentiary standard of malice. That means he would need to show that on top of all of the other elements of defamation, he would also need to show by admissible evidence that you made the statements out of a desire to cause harm and with disregard and indifference for the truth.
Further, statements of opinion are not subject to defamation claims. This applies to statements that are explicitly defined as opinion as well as to statements that are implicitly determined by their context to be opinion.
Finally, he needs to be able to show actual consequential damages as a result of any allegedly defamatory statements. What losses could be directly caused by your statement of your opinion about this public figure?
This potential claimant has no real leverage here.
Defamation requires you to state or write something that you know to be untrue. Is he a liar or incompetent? If so, then no.
One the other hand, as I have always been told, if you have to get permission to do something your conscious tells you not to, then you probably should listen to your conscious.
