defamation Flashcards
defamation
protects a person’s reputation from being damaged by lies that are shared with the public
5 elements of defamation
- statement if defamatory
- untrue
- refer to p
- published
- caused/likely to cause serious harm
statement is defamatory
lowers a person’s reputation in the eyes of ordinary members of the community
defamation act
Defamation Act 2005 (Vic)
statement refers to the plaintiff
- explicitly named
- reasonably conclude
- can be defamed as part of a group if small enough
statement has been published
p can sue once a third party reads, sees or hears the defamatory material
caused/likely to cause serious harm
seeks to prevent frivolous and trivial defamation claims
- determined by judge before trial
considerations for ‘serious harm’
- meaning of words and gravity of allegatin
- scale of publication and any grapevine effect
- reaction of recipients
- loss suffered or could be suffered
defamation defences
justification
contextual truth
honest opinion
innocent dissemination
justification
core imputations of the statement is substantially true
contextual truth
defamatory statements are made w/in the same context as the statements that are substantially true. does no further harm to the plaintiff’s reputation
- if ST > untrue, ‘cancelled out’
honest opinion
- opinion rather than statement of fact
- related to a matter of public interest
- based on proper material that is notorious or accessible from a reference/link
innocent dissemination
- published the material as a subordinate distributor or as an employee or agent of one
- did not know (nor should have known) that the publication contained defamatory information
- did not have an obligation to check for defamatory material
subordinate distributor
someone other than author, editor or primary distributor
