Email from Reader, Lesson on Libel

Last week I got an email from a fan reader about an article I had written. She had landed on my page from a Google Search of either "market street saloon charleston bartenders," or one of the other two very similar searches (my favorite Google search of the week was "ideal urine temperature"). After reading my article Charleston II, she sent me the following email:

Hi,

I understand that opinions are legal, but slander is not.
I suggest you remove the "heroin addicted bartender" segment from your story.

Thank you

After a quick stalk I found her MySpace profile here.

This is a duplicate of what she was referring to:

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"Each night I drank an entire bottle of wine by myself, as well as multiple beers. If these pictures look well composed and coherent, that's because of my camera. That night we go to a Coyote Ugly themed bar called Market Street Saloon, which is styled like bars in Nashville. Girls could get up on the bar and dance, and if no one else was, the strungout heroin addict looking bartenders would. They made sure Coyote 'Ugly' lived up to its name. I snapped a picture of this one riding a bicycle on the bar.

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I sat for a few minutes re-reading her sentences and trying to figure out I wanted to be an asshole or not. Was I, as her veiled threat suggested, slandering the good name of the bartenders at the Market Street Saloon? One of the biggest problems I have with retracting pieces of published articles is that I'm way too lazy. Especially when you don't say please, or offer me sexual favors. That being said, I've been curious over the past couple of years about how much trouble I could get in for the crap I squat online. I did some brief research online and then set up an appointment to talk to the lawyer with Student Services. And emailed her back.

Hey Ashley,

Actually, defamation in print is called "libel." The sentence is currently,
"Girls could get up on the bar and dance, and if no one else was, the
strungout heroin addict looking bartenders would." This is legal, because
it implies that the bartenders looked to me like strungout heroin addicts,
in July 2005 when it was written... and that's an opinion. I'll call my
lawyer tomorrow and ask just to be sure.

But I doubt that's what you're after. If you can give me a good reason to
change it (like pictures of decent looking bartenders that work there now),
I'll tone it down.

Really, I just wanted pictures of babes to revitalize my stagnating arsenal of spankfodder. She wrote back:

Hi,

I'm not "after" anything, except asking you to take a serious opinion/accusation of drug use off of your site that is very suggestive and accusing.

You are absolutely correct, you are entitled to your own opinion, but it's one thing to insult, and another to suggest drug use.
The Character portrayed by employees at the saloon is strictly for entertainment for people like yourself, and has nothing to do with drug use.
It doesn't matter what you think they look like, but drug use is very serious.
Each of the girls who work there are daughters, sisters, aunts...and have other jobs during the day.
For example:
Imagine your employer google-ing you and found "coked out looking guy drinking at a bar", and a picture of you right beside it suggesting drug use.
I appreciate the liberating lesson on libel vs. slander, but all I'm "after" Is the drug accusation to be deleted.

Thank you

Well Ashley, here is my response. If my employer googled me and found "coked out looking guy drinking at a bar," and a picture of me, it's probably accurate. In fact, I probably posted it. If my employer is cool enough to employ me, he's probably the other guy sitting next to me in the picture, so he'd call me in his office and we'd high five and then iron out our plans to run a train on our secretary. Now when it comes to YOUR employer, I would hope that he wouldn't take anything too seriously from a website where the author admits to crapping in the ocean and having a small penis.

Still, she had me up until the sarcasm of the "liberating lesson" in the last line. So I will continue my lesson on libel, as it pertains to blogging and my website in specific.

Meet Lawyer Bruce

Bruce, the student legal advisor, is a solid guy. We had a great time as I asked him questions, read him questionable pieces of this website, and gave him hypothetical scenarios... most of which had us presuming he was a transvestite, and I was defaming him by saying different things. There was much laughter, and he left thanking me for letting him think about and discuss something other than underage possession. We're basically bff's. Here are the basics of libel as we discussed:

While you are legally entitled to expressing an opinion, the bottom line is that you cannot make a false statement of truth. From there on out it's all gray area, including what a false statement of truth actually is, what context the statement is made in, and how it would appear to a reasonable reader. Let's start with the sentence that Ashley didn't like.

"...and if no one else was, the strungout heroin addict looking bartenders would." - Not libel. It's my opinion that the bartenders looked like heroin addicts.

"...and if no one else was, the strungout heroin addict bartenders would."- Still not libel (but in the gray area). A reasonable reader would not see this as a presentation of fact, as opposed to my opinion, that the bartenders actually were heroin addicts. This also falls under hyperbole, the figure of speech using exaggeration to make strong impression.

"The bartenders at xxxx are strungout heroin addicts." - That's libel. A reasonable reader would interpret me as saying that they are literally drug users.

Some interesting Q and A for my lawschool readers:

What would the jurisdiction of an internet (blog) libel lawsuit be? Usually, state long arm statues are applicable. You can read more about that here.

If you wonder when the statute of limitations begins for blog / internet articles, you can find that here.

So basically, I got the green light to continue my sarcastic smartbombings and raging dickheadery. Ashley, I hope you enjoyed another "liberating lesson" on libel.