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This is a question about libel: does the statute of limitations begin
when a written libel is first published, or does it begin all over
again each time the the written libel is republished (ie, read by a new
person), even if the author of the libels does not himself republish
them?
To take a hypothetical case: A Libeler writes a letter to a Recipient
with outrageous falsehoods about somebody I'll call "Innocent." The
letter was written and dated over two years ago. The statute of
limitations runs out after two years.
Assume that Recipient does not show Libeler's letter to anybody until
one month ago. At that time, he shows it to "Third-Party." Recipient
does not express any opinion about the truth or falsity of the
allegations about Innocent in Libeler's letter, but he knows very well
that if other people believe the allegations, Innocent will lose
business.
Third-party goes to Innocent and informs him that Recipient is
inpossession of a letter from Libeler that contains damaging
allegations. He encourages Innocent to take action against Libeler and
Recipient before his reputation is destroyed.
Innocent writes a polite request to Recipient, informing him that the
allegations in the letter by Libeler are falsehoods. He asks Recipient
to cease showing the letter to anybody. He furthermore asks Recipient
to tell Third-Party and any other third-parties who he has shown the
letter to that the letter contains falsehoods, in order to restore
Innocent's reputation.
Recipient refuses on all counts, claiming: 1. he did not write the
letter or make the allegations--Libeler did. 2. if they are falsehoods
then it is Libeler's obligation to retract them, and not Recipient's.
3. Recipient can show the letter to anybody he wants, because it is
his 'property' and so long as he does not express an opinion about
whether or not Libeler is telling the truth, he is not personally
harming Innocent.
Recipient also admits that he has shown the letter to others besides
Third-Party, but refuses to tell Innocent their names to enable
Innocent himself to restore his own reputation to the third-parties.
Recipient tells Innocent to 'sue me.'
Innocent says he thinks he just might do that.
Innocent would like to pour hot oil over Recipient's head, but leaves
him alone for the moment and goes to Libeler, demanding a retraction.
Libeler says: "tough luck. The letter is two years old. The statute
of limitations ran out one month ago."
Questions: DID the statute of limitations run out on Libeler? Or did
Recipient 'restart' the clock on Libeler when he 'republished'
Libeler's letter by showing it to Third-Party one month previously?
How can Innocent compel Recipient to cease showing Libeler's letter to
others, short of pouring hot oil over his head?
Is Recipient guilty of libel, despite hte fact Libeler wrote the
letter? Or is there is another legal term for what Recipient is doing?
And when did the statute of limitation begin running for Recipient:
when he received the letter from Libeler, or when he first showed the
letter from Libeler to a third-party?
And can Innocent legally compel Recipient to reveal the names of people
to whom he showed Libelers' letter?
The end
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n 30 Jul 2005, forumsemail@hotmail.com wrote:
Does the statute of limitations for libel begin
when a written libel is first published, . . .
. . . Yes . . .
. . . or does it begin all over again each time the the
written libel is republished (ie, read by a new person),
even if the author of the libel does not himself republish
the libel?
For defamation law purposes, the term "republish" when used in
connection with a person who had previously published a defamatory
statement but does so for the first time is an oxymoron and yet you
appear to be conflating that issue (the answer to the question, When,
if at all, for the first, time did the defendant - whether or not the
original author of the statement in question - publish a defamatory
statement?) with the separate question whether, given the nature of
the publication at issue in the applicable jurisdiction, the so-called
"single publication" rule applies.
[ Suppose that, in a jursidiction with a two year statute
of limitations, Libeler wrote a letter two years ago to
Recipient which makes provably libelous statements
about Innocent and that Recipient, who had not previously
told anyone he had received the letter, showed it for the
first time to Reader twenty-five months after its receipt. ]
If Recipient did not do this on Libeler's express instructions or
request or as an agent authorized by Libeler to do this, this would
not be a publication by Libeler to Reader within two-years (regardless
whether, as you appear to assume, the letter is libelous and also not
protected by some sort of privilege).
[ When Recipient showed the letter to Reader, Recipient
does not express any opinion about the truth or falsity
of the letter's statements though he knows that if
others learned of and believed those statements, Innocent
will be damaged by a resulting loss of business. ]
Assuming (though you haven't explained how/why) you are correct that,
if a lawsuit had been timely brought, a court would have ruled that
the letter in question is libelous and not protected by any sort of
privilege, it would be (and probably still is) immaterial whether
Recipient had expressed any opinion about its truth or falsity when he
showed it to Reader or whether, when he showed the letter to Reader,
Recipient actually "knew" that damage that you appear here to posit
had in fact not yet occurred "will" occur.
Either the letter is libelous, or it is not; either its publication
(if timely sued upon and if not protected by some sort of privilege)
will have provably caused damage, or it will not; and (in
jurisdictions in which this still is at least a law-theoretically
viable issue), if its publication did not cause actual damage, either
the letter is libelous "per se" or it is not; although your apparent
implication that, apart from showing the letter to another person more
than two years after he received it, Recipient did not behave in a way
that was damaging to Innocent might become relevant.
[ Reader then tells Innocent that Recipient has the
letter, that it contains damaging allegations about
Innocent, that Reader believes Innocent ought take
steps to try to prevent the letter's further
dissemination lest Pltff's reputation be destroyed
whereupon Innocent writes to Recipient to claim
that the letter contains false statement about Innocent
and to ask Recipient to tell anyone to whom he had
shown the letterthat it is false in the manner Innocent
asserts and not to show it to anyone else. However,
Recipient refuses, says Innocent should look to Libeler
for retraction if he wants one, and claims that he may
show the letter who whomever she wishes provided that
in so doing he doesn't express an opinion whether
Libeler's statements therein are true. ]
There have been cases imposing liability on a defendant who published
a libelous statement about a plaintiff that was written by someone
else.
[ Libeler refuses Pltff's request for a retraction
and says that the letter was sent only to Recipient
and that the statute of limitations has expired. ]
DID the statute of limitations run out on Libeler?
On the facts as you've so far stated them, Yes, because you haven't
said that Recipient showed the letter to Reader on Libeler's
instruction or request or otherwise as Libeler's authorized agent with
Libeler's knowledge.
[ Is Recipient guilty of libel even though he
is not the letter's author? ]
You ask the reader of your posting/query to assume that the letter in
question is provably libelous and also implicitly ask the reader to
assume that the communication of the letter by Libeler to Recipient
and by Recipient to whomever Recipient showed the letter is not
provably protected by any sort of privilege. Although it is at least
conjecturally possible that you are correct in so hypothesizing, it is
very common for would-be libel plaintiff's to be incorrect in such
assumptions. But if you are correct in these assumptions, then see
comment above re. there being cases of liability for defamation
imposed on the publisher of a defamatory statement not originally
created/composed by the publisher. Further, with respect to the
future, it is you who posits that Recipient has been on actual notice
since his receipt of Innocent's demand letter that Innocent contends
that the letter contains falsehoods you imply he identified.
Or is there is another legal term for what
Recipient is doing?
On the facts as you've so far stated them, Recipient has done
something (shown the letter to which you refer to some others and
rejected Innocent's request that Recipient characterize the letter to
others as false and confirm he will not show it to others), but you
have not said how/that, otherwise, "Recipient "is doing" (or will in
the future do) anything of interest related to Innocent.
In any case (if there were to be an attempted real-life law-related
"case"), what if any other "legal terms" apply to Recipient will
depend on your being less abstract/skeltal about the facts, especially
about the nature of the relationship between/among the parties, about
why Recipient showed the letter to others, and about why Recipient
will show the letter to others in the future if he does that.
[ Assuming that the letter is a non-privileged
libelous statement, did the statute of limitations
with respect to Recipient first begin to run
when he showed the letter to another person? ]
Yes. Also, depending on the nature of the letter fairly read as a
whole (just a one-shot letter? some sort of commercially printed
brochure or pamphlet? other) and also on where this mini-mellodrama is
occurring, the so-called "single publication" rule referred to above
may (or may not) apply viz-a-viz the persons to whom Recipient showed
or in the future will show the statements in question.*
[ Can Innocent use the processes of law to
compel Recipient to reveal the names of
persons to whom he showed the letter and
to cease showing the letter to others? ]
This will depend on the provable correctness or not of the assumptions
referred to above importantly including whether the letter's
publication did or "will damage" Innocent.
Assuming that Innocent were to sue Recipient for damages for libel and
overcome what pe
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On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 19:46:12 -0400, forumsemail@hotmail.com wrote:
This is a question about libel: does the statute of limitations begin
when a written libel is first published, or does it begin all over
again each time the the written libel is republished (ie, read by a new
person),
I topped reading at this point. Publishing and reading are
fundamentally separate acts. "Read by a new person" can in no way
be equated ("i.e.") to "republished".
--
If you e-mail me from a fake address, your fingers will drop off.
I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice. When you read anything
legal on the net, always verify it on your own, in light of your
particular circumstances. You may also need to consult a lawyer.
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
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Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 19:46:12 -0400, forumsemail@hotmail.com wrote:
This is a question about libel: does the statute of limitations begin
when a written libel is first published, or does it begin all over
again each time the the written libel is republished (ie, read by a new
person),
I topped reading at this point. Publishing and reading are
fundamentally separate acts. "Read by a new person" can in no way
be equated ("i.e.") to "republished".
Perhaps you're not familiar then with this usage of the word "read".
A sentence of the form <Statement A> read <Phrase B>
can mean that Statement A should be read with Phrase B in mind.
Steve
--
If you e-mail me from a fake address, your fingers will drop off.
I am not a lawyer; this is not legal advice. When you read anything
legal on the net, always verify it on your own, in light of your
particular circumstances. You may also need to consult a lawyer.
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
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--I topped reading at this point. Publishing and reading are
--fundamentally separate acts. "Read by a new person" can in no way
--be equated ("i.e.") to "republished".
Of course it can:
"In the context of defamation law, a statement is "published"
when it is made to the third party. That term does not mean
that the statement has to be in print."
"Each repetition of a defamatory remark [to a new
third-party] is a new injury. This means that you can obtain
damages for each time the defamatory statement is repeated."
Going by the above, a defamatory spoken statement is 'published'
EACH time it is spoken and--of course--HEARD by a new
third-party. By extension, a defamatory written statement is
'published' EACH time it is READ by a new third-party.
Of course, a Libeler doesn't have to REWRITE his libel each
time it is read by a third-party, while a slanderer does have
to RESPEAK his slander for it be heard by a new person.
But to take a ridiculous example to highlight the artifical
distinction between libel and slander, at least in some
circumstances, vis a vis the statute
of limitations: Take the defamatory statement:
"Joe is a horse thief."
Each time I SAY that to a new person, I injure Joe anew,
and the statute of limitations begins fresh.
If I WRITE a one-sentence article "JOe is a thief,"
date it, and put it on a web page, then it's a libel,
and the statute of limitation does NOT
begin anew each time the 'article' is read.
BUT:
But what's the difference between me SAYING
"Joe is a thief," or me saying, "Read my 'article'
at www.joeisathief.com"
[which says that "Joe is a thief"]?
It seems to me that any time a libeler brings his
libel to the attention of a new
third-party, its no different in principle from
'repeating his statement' and
creating a 'new injury,' and if there were justice,
the statute of limitations would start over again.
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