False Statements Not Required for Defamation
A Massachusetts state law (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, Sect. 92) provides as follows:
“The defendant in an action for writing or for publishing a libel may introduce in evidence the truth of the matter contained in the publication charged as libelous; and the truth shall be a justification unless actual malice is proved.”
Which means, according to the US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, that you can bring a defamation claim in Massachusetts even though the information is true if you can show malice, and the Court defined malice as “ill will” or “malevolent intent”.
It’s becoming a difficult time for the free speech expansionist movement as the Courts find one reason after another to offer legal relief for those targeted by false, or in this case true but hurtful, online and electronic comments. The tide is shifting.
And shifting quickly.
The case is Noonan v. Staples, Inc.
