Defamation

A statement that someone is a member of a certain prison gang, when he merely conspired with its members, is substantially true and therefore protected against a defamation suit, a Colorado federal appellate court ruled this month.

A Colorado prosecutor violated a student blogger’s constitutional rights when she approved a search warrant of his mother's home over a criminal libel allegation, a federal judge ruled on Friday.

A West Virginia trial judge erred when she ordered a newspaper to reveal the identities of anonymous sources and documents in a defamation suit against the paper, the state’s highest court recently ruled.

The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia returned the case to the lower court, which must identify and analyze each allegedly defamatory statement and the confidential source who made the statement separately.

A California appellate court last week affirmed a lower court ruling that a bank manager presented enough evidence to allow his defamation claim against McGraw-Hill to proceed, thus rejecting the publisher's anti-SLAPP argument. The manager alleged that he was defamed by statements about the mortgage crisis in a BusinessWeek article.

A New Jersey appellate court ruled Monday that a man involved in a defamation suit regarding online child sexual abuse accusations will be allowed to proceed without proving damages, an unusual move departing from the standard of requiring proof of damages in defamation suits.

The Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning unanimously passed bipartisan legislation aimed at protecting authors and journalists from libel lawsuits filed abroad.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned a $3.5 million defamation verdict against Wilkes-Barre's The Citizens' Voice and ordered a new trial after finding the original trial may have been fixed by two former judges and a reputed crime boss, the Times Leader reported.

The New Jersey Supreme Court heard oral arguments this morning in the appeal of a 2008 libel ruling that considerably narrowed the state’s “fair report” privilege that protects journalists who report on information contained in court filings, Newark's The Star-Ledger reported.

A Massachusetts jury has decided that a truthful mass e-mail criticizing the former employee of an office supply company is not libelous because it was not sent with actual malice, Law.com reports. The verdict was the latest round in a case that questioned well-established libel jurisprudence when a federal appeals court found that the truth can still be libelous.

A South Carolina newspaper alerted an anonymous online commenter that he or she has until Oct. 2 to respond to a Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce subpoena or the newspaper will hand over the commenter’s identity.