If you feel that you’ve been a victim of libel or slander, you might try to seek compensation for damages in a civil lawsuit. To be honest, most lawsuits for defamation of character never yield positive results, but if you have enough proof to win your claim, you could have a solid case. Before you file a civil lawsuit for libel or slander, you’ll need to prove it, so here are a few tips to get you started.
Prove the Statement was False
In order to win a civil lawsuit for libel or slander, you will need to be able to prove that the statement (either written or spoken) was false. In other words, you have to demonstrate in court that the statement has no element of truth. This can be far more difficult than you would imagine, so it’s important that you pay attention to this point.
For example, let’s say that a restaurant critic wrote that the food at your establishment was made from cat meat rather than chicken. Obviously, this is a case of libel if you don’t, in fact, use cat meat to make your food, but you have to prove that there isn’t any cat in the dishes your restaurant serves. This is easy enough – hire an expert witness to test the meat in your restaurant and to testify that it is chicken rather than cat.
Prove the Statement was Made to Others
You can’t file a civil lawsuit against an individual for slandering you to your face if no one else is around to hear it. The basis of a defamation of character claim is the supposition that the statement caused damage to your reputation, which isn’t the case if no one else was privy to the statement. You must be able to demonstrate that someone else heard or read it to win.
In some cases, this will be easy enough to prove, especially in the event of libel. If the aforementioned restaurant critic published his review in the New York Times, it is safe to assume that hundreds of thousands of people read it. However, if the review never made it to the paper, you’ll have a hard time winning your case.
Prove the Statement Caused You Harm
The next facet you’ll need to cover in your civil lawsuit is harm. In order to prove libel or slander, you must be able to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the written or spoken statement damaged your reputation. For example, if the critic published his defamatory review, you could use the fact that sales decreased 40% over the next week as proof of harm.
Contrary to popular opinion, however, the harm must be more than circumstantial. Losing a job or customers, being assaulted on the street, receiving hate mail from angry readers or getting demoted at work are all examples of harm, which can definitely help to prove libel or slander.
