What Damages are Available for Online Defamation?

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What Damages are available for online defamtion_

Matt: Hi, it’s Matt Plessner and welcome back to Defamation Law Radio.  We’ve talked about defamation on the internet many times before.  What can you do if you are defamed? And what kind of compensations are you entitled to?  We are going to talk about some of these things as we interview Mark Clark of the Traverse Legal office of Traverse City, Michigan.  Mark, thanks again for being back!

Mark:  Thanks Matt!  It is always a pleasure to be here.

Matt: Well thank you very much! Now, just start off plain and simple.  What, I guess damages are available for any kind of online defamation, Mark?

Mark:  Well, Matt, as you well know, online defamation, derogatory comments about others, especially online in social media sites, has been rampant the last several years, and we at Traverse Legal receive calls daily asking what are our remedies for these online defamation cases that people call us about and often times, the end game is simply the removal of the defamatory posts so that it is no longer visible online.  But that doesn’t take away the fact that the victim has been damaged and so then the question becomes, “What damages are available to me against the person who defamed me online?”  And really it can be a complicated issue to unravel and it differs from state to state.  But basically, the damages that might be available to you to recover against the person who defamed you online are actual damages and those, for instance, may be harm to your business that caused a drop in revenue and/or wages, or caused you perhaps to be fired form a job, or perhaps you might be able to offer evidence that you were not able to obtain a job due to the defamatory posts.  Those are what we call actual damages.  Damages that are provable and can be calculated and put on a blackboard, for instance, in front of a judge or a jury.  Then there are the other types of damages which are hard to quantify and more difficult to quantify and those are damage to reputation and, in some cases, you may even have some emotional distress damages available to you for the hurt and anxiety that you felt as a result of the online defamation.  Often that number will differ wildly depending upon your trier effect.  A jury, in one case under the same facts, may award a different number than a jury might award given the same facts simply because of the different complexions of juries in online defamation cases.  The other variables in play are the victim’s reputation, which becomes at issue for purposes of damages in an online defamation case.  If you have a stellar reputation, odds are that your damages claim will be great than if the defendant is able to prove that you have a questionable reputation.  And there’s one more type of damages that maybe available in most states.  Matt, those are exemplary or punitive damages, and those are usually available if you can prove that the person who defamed you in an online posting or in social media did it with actual malice or bad intent.  And those damages are utilized to punish the defendant for the intentionally wrongfully conduct in posting statements online about the individual.  So that is, more or less, the synopsis of the damages that maybe available to you depending upon where you live and whether or not you are able to prove malice in your case for online defamation claims, particularly as they appear in social media.

Matt:  Now Mark, backing up just a little bit, you were talking about … you used the term ‘non-quantifiable damages’.  Do these always deal in money and cash and financial restitution or do other things come into play as well?

Mark:  That is a good … Matt, that is an excellent question.  As I’ve indicated, you can obtain relief from a court in an online defamation matter by way of an injunction that would order the removal of the online defamation.  The Court may also order the defendant to refrain from any further defamatory content.  Sometimes courts will indicate that is what they call a prior restraint on free speech, but I have seen it accomplished in some cases.

Matt: And, of course, Mark, you have talked about punitive damages, punitive restitution.  What does this include?  In other words, what kinds of penalties can be given to the person who has inflicted the damages?

Mark:  Well, Matt, it really depends on how angry the jury becomes.  Where punitive damages are available to punish the defendant for their actions in posting online defamation, those awards in some jurisdictions have totaled in the millions of dollars simply because of the outrageous nature of the conduct relative to the online defamation posting.  

Matt:  Well, Mark, thanks once again for joining us and talking to us about these defamation charges and what types of things can happen and what you can do about it.

Mark:  Thanks Matt! We always recommend that someone who is a victim of online defamation consult with an online defamation attorney to assess their own particular set of circumstances, the law in their particular jurisdiction and that allows them to better be able to make value judgments and informed decisions on how to proceed forward with their online defamation problem.

Matt: And, of course, Mark and the other lawyers there at Traverse Legal are there to help you with these things should this happen to you.  We just wanted to give you these overviews to help you out should this happen to you.  And once again, thank you Mark, and want to see you next time here on Defamation Law Radio.  This is Matt Plessner.

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