Delaware Defamation Attorney

Bejamin Franklin said, “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” Luckily for Ben Franklin, he didn’t live in the world of social media, where one false Facebook post or Yelp review can sink a lifetime of work.

Defamation is a communication that tends to injure a person's "reputation" in the ordinary sense of that word; that is, some statement or action that diminishes the esteem, respect, goodwill, or confidence in which the person is held and tends to cause bad feelings or opinions about the person. Libel is written defamation. Slander is oral defamation.

Defamation necessarily involves the idea of disgrace. In this sense, a communication is defamatory if it tends to lower the person in the estimation of the community or if it deters third parties from associating or dealing with the person defamed. But defamation occurs only when the defamatory information is communicated to someone other than the person to whom it refers. In the law, this is known as "publication."

Remember, a defamatory statement must be false -- otherwise it's not considered damaging. Even terribly mean or disparaging things are not defamatory. Opinions are not defamation if they can't be proved to be objectively false.

I have successfully handled several defamation lawsuits, most involving internet posts. If you believe that you are the victim of defamation, please call my office to schedule a consultation.