Defamation
Defamatory refers to damaging someone’s or a firm’s reputation. The ABC report cannot be considered to be defamatory since ABC channel has no vice against BPI. On the other hand, BPI’s hamburger was making customers unhappy, meaning that their reputation was ruined. Product disparagement, on the other hand, is defined as a false statement about a product that is meant to hurt the maker. As per the case, the ABC report cannot also be considered product disparagement. The story was not false, but the truth of the matter. To prove product disparagement, BPI has to prove that ABC’s report is inaccurate and connect it directly to their economic losses. Yet, ABC aired the story to express their opinion without any hidden ill motives to harm the Company.
Defamation involves any written (libel) or spoken (slander) statement that destroys the reputation of a third party. ABC published the report in a public domain; this means that the report was made known to a third party. The story was also in nature that an ordinary person could find it damaging to the reputation of BBI. However, to prove defamation, the plaintiff (BPI) should prove that the statement was false and show a direct link between the report and the damage caused. This is hard because the news channel did not make the report with fault and their intentions were not to harm BPI’s reputation. Instead, it just gave their opinion of what they found in the ground, and this cannot be considered defamation.
Defamation laws were enacted to protect the reputation of people from unfair attack. The primary purpose of the defamation laws is to regulate the freedom of speech and guard powerful individuals against scrutiny. The influential people are vulnerable to be attacked and defamed by other people due to their publicity.
In America, the 23 states and two take defamation as criminal law in the state books. Under the American Federal Law system, all the defamation claims are significantly governed by the state, subject to the limitations imposed by the press provisions and free speech of the U.S constitution’s first amendment.