Legal Practice and Procedures

• Law of Tort: Defamation


  Defamation is the publication of a false statement about a person that damages that person's reputation
• What you need to prove to prove defamation


  • Someone made a defamatory statement and it is false
  • It referred to the plaintiff
  • It was published
• Actionable per se


  Don't have to prove damage; just that statement was made
• When does the statement refer to the plaintiff

  • When the plaintiff is named
  • Sufficient to lead a reasonable person to believe it refers to the plaintiff
• Publication


  Communicated to a third party
• Injunction


  A court order to do or stop doing something
• Interlocutory injunction


  To stop publication pending hearing