[EL] damages awarded for defamatory campaign ad

[Bill Maurer]

There was a case at the Washington Supreme Court, Rickert v. Public Disclosure Commission, 168 P.3d 826, that addressed whether the state may make it a campaign finance violation for statements that would meet the standards for a cause of action for libel or slander.

Bill

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2012 9:23 AM
To: law-election at UCI.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] damages awarded for defamatory campaign ad

As I mentioned, I don't think there's any First Amendment problem with awarding libel damages for recklessly or knowingly false statements of fact in an election campaign, given New York Times v. Sullivan and later cases.  But I do wonder whether the verdict in this case was supportable.  For instance, the plaintiffs apparently argued that the statements about "Bertrand's company" must have referred to the small marketing companies that Bertrand owned, while in context it appears that a reasonable viewer would have seen the ad as referring to the company that Bertrand worked for.  Under the independent appellate review standard set forth in Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union, an appellate court might well reverse the judgment, concluding that the particular statements in this case were either true or expressions of opinion.

Eugene Volokh
UCLA School of Law







On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 7:27 AM, Kieran Williams <kierandwilliams at yahoo.com<mailto:kierandwilliams at yahoo.com>> wrote:
A jury has awarded a candidate for the Iowa State Senate $231,000 in damages for allegations made by his 2010 opponent in a 30-second attack ad; details are here<http://www.bleedingheartland.com/diary/5432/gop-state-senator-wins-defamation-case-over-2010-ad>. Note that the plaintiff who brought the suit did win the race, albeit very narrowly. Does anyone know of similar recent cases, in particular of any that did not get overturned? (I am not involved in this case in any way - I'm just interested in the boundaries of protected campaign speech.)

Kieran Williams
Drake University
Des Moines, IA  50311
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