Every human being has a character which helps to shape his reputation in his community. To Bill Clinton, former United States president, character is everything. It defines the individual, his integrity or lack of one.

It shapes the view of reasonable people in the community about a person or company. In our African communities, the truth is often the first casualty in any discourse and a person’s character often impinged on by his kinsmen who are hostile to his progress.

Many young ladies have not married today because of vicious slander behind their backs and many young men have no one to help them not because they have no integrity but because their kinsmen had ruined their reputation.

Many companies have gone under because of defamation by their people in whose community they were located.

What is defamation?

Defamation can be defined as any statement which impinges on any person’s reputation and brings him into ridicule and contempt before reasonable persons in the community. It can be in writing, or oral. A picture can also be defamatory. It is an attack on his reputation. The principles of defamation are universal in common law, Nigerian and American law but there  are notable differences in jurisdictions.

The American jurisprudence is far more developed and this writer has placed reliance on the manual of NPC to explain the vital elementary principles of the general principles of defamation.

Types of defamation.

Defamation can be oral or written .An oral defamation is said to be a slander. A written defamation is said to be a libel.

Who Can Be Defamed?

Essentially, any living person, corporation or other legal entity can be defamed.

Unincorporated associations cannot sue for defamation although individual members of those associations can sue if defamatory statements about the association clearly defame them.

No action for defamation can be brought on behalf of people who are deceased. See Keys v. Interstate Circuit, 468 S.W. 485 (Tex. 1971). However if a defamatory statement against a deceased person also defames a living person, the living person can bring a cause of action.

Falsity of Statements

In bringing a cause of action against a defendant, the plaintiff must claim that what the defendant said about him was false.

However, the burden of proving that the statement was true is on the defendant. Although, if proven, truth is a complete defense to a charge of defamation. See Craig v. Wright, 76 P.2d 248 (Okla. 1938). Thus, if the defamatory statement is true, the plaintiff will not have a viable cause of action, even if the defendant’s motives for making the statements were malicious, and even if the defendant did not know that his defamatory statement was true at the time he made it.

While the defendant must prove the truth of his statement, he does not have to prove the absolute truth of his statement. As long as the defendant can prove the general truth of his statement, he will not be held liable. See Posadas v. City of Reno, 851 P.2d 438 (Nev. 1993). For example:

Henry tells a third person that Tucker stole a brand new Cadillac SUV. In fact, Tucker stole a beaten up twenty year old Dodge Pinto. For the purposes of his defense, Henry’s statement may be considered true despite the fact that Tucker stole a Pinto and not a new Cadillac.

The fact that truth represents a complete defense to any charge of defamation arises from the first amendment of the United States Constitution which guarantees our freedom of speech. This right is especially important when it comes to criticizing our government officials. In fact, because freedom of speech plays such an important role in establishing our ability to criticize public officials, where a defamation case involves a public official, the constitution requires that the public official, and not the defendant, bear the burden of proving that the defamatory statement is false.

Truth as a defense can only apply in cases where the defamatory statement is a statement of fact. That being the case, there is no automatic defense for statements of opinion, which cannot be categorically proven to be either true or false. Because opinion cannot be proven true or false, the court will look to the effect that the statement has on the plaintiff’s reputation in order to determine liability.

Thus, if the defendant utters an opinion about the plaintiff that the community does not believe and does not diminish the plaintiff’s reputation, the plaintiff will not have a cause of action against the defendant, even if the defendant’s statement was said out of malice.

Furthermore, statements that are made in the course of public debate that are either exaggerations or gross exaggerations will not give rise to liability because the audience generally expects to hear a certain measure of exaggeration in public debate and will not take these statements as assertions of fact. For example:

Causation

The plaintiff must show that the defendant’s defamatory statement was the actual and proximate cause for his diminished reputation.

Damages

As we said earlier, defamation is an umbrella term that encompasses two kinds of statements: libel and slander. Libel is defined as defamation which appears in some written or permanent physical form such as newspapers, books, or audio cassettes. Slander is defined as oral defamation and is, by definition, less permanent than written defamation.

Because libel appears in a permanent physical embodiment, it is the more severe of the two forms of defamation. For that reason, and for the reason that the scope and extent of liability hinges on which form of defamation the defendant has committed, it is important to determine what kind of defamation the defendant has actually committed. That being the case, in situations where it is difficult to determine which kind of defamation the defendant committed (ex: defamation broadcast over the radio or by television), the courts will use the permanency of the form of the publication and the extent of the dissemination to determine whether or not the defamation is libel or slander (please note that most jurisdictions today consider radio and television publications as libel). See Whitby v. Associates Discount Corp., 207 N.E.2d 482 (Ill. 1965).

To be contd.

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