The mormon church and libel

[Aqualung]

Could the mormon church (with a reasonable chance of success) sue places like mormon-lds.com or exmormon.whatever or other publishers of anti-mormon literature for libel under the claim that these places misrepresent and lie about mormonism and thereby hurt its image and potential membership?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Could the mormon church sue places like mormon-lds.com or exmormon.whatever or other publishers of anti-mormon literature for libel under the claim that these places misrepresent and lie about mormonism and thereby hurt its image and potential membership?

Anyone can sue anyone else. Whether they'll be successful is a different matter.

This site talks a bit about the law surrounding defamation in both written and oral forms.

Anything that injures a person's reputation can be defamatory. If a comment brings a person into contempt, disrepute or ridicule, it is likely to be defamatory.

[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]If someone sues you because you made a defamatory statement, you can defend your speech or writing on various grounds. There are three main types of defence:[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]- what you said was true;[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]- you had a duty to provide information;[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif]- you were expressing an opinion.[/FONT][/FONT]
[/FONT]

 

[ALifetimeToWaitFor....]

If the material is opinion no, but if the facts mixed in with the opinions are false then yes. My guess however is these sites are mostly about personal experience and the facts would be hard to disprove. It also matters where the potential plantiff resides.

 

[ALifetimeToWaitFor....]

you had a duty to provide information;

The duty defense is a horrible way to go. Its been overturned almost every time its been sucessful.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The duty defense is a horrible way to go. Its been overturned almost every time its been sucessful.

I only included it so as to not hack apart the quote. I gather this is more for incidents like public health officials posting inspection reports from dirty restaurants and the like (definitely defamatory, but definitely true, and definitely a duty), and not so much for people who feel a hard-to-define "obligation" to write something defamatory.

 

[ALifetimeToWaitFor....]

Ok that makes sense

 

[silvermoon383]

You bet your sweet backside we could. Heck, we could've sued Ed Decker (author of "The Godmakers") for every dime he'll make in his entire life and won, but the Church won't sue over stuff like that.

Turning the other cheek and all that. Plus anti-Mormon books have a tendency to backfire and cause an increase in Church membership.

 

[Aqualung]

Anyone can sue anyone else. Whether they'll be successful is a different matter.

I've edited it for clarity.

If the material is opinion no, but if the facts mixed in with the opinions are false then yes. My guess however is these sites are mostly about personal experience and the facts would be hard to disprove. It also matters where the potential plantiff resides.

No, they're not opinion. (Well, some of it is, but for the most part, it's not.)

A lot of it, though, is either defaming Joseph Smith (and you can't have a libel suit against somebody who's dead) or taking something true and distorting it or taking it out of context. So, to make a very simple analogy, could I sue for libel if I said, "I'm not racist" and somebody printed that in the newspaper as "Aqualung says, 'I'm...racist'". True, I did say "I'm...racist", but that "..." makes a lot of difference to the meaning of what I was saying.

 

[Comprehend]

the church would have a better chance of getting control of the website "mormon-lds.com"

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

A lot of it, though, is either defaming Joseph Smith (and you can't have a libel suit against somebody who's dead) or taking something true and distorting it or taking it out of context.

I don't think only the defamed person can sue. I imagine that any person or organization who suffers damages as a result of a defamation could sue. For example, if someone were to claim that the actor who plays Ronald McDonald is a pedophile, the actor would certainly suffer damages himself, but McDonalds would likely suffer separate damages as well, and could probably choose to sue if they wanted.

 

[Aqualung]

What about the fact that there's so many mormons? My teacher was mentioning that if there's such a large group, and nobody in particular is mentioned, that you can't really win a libel suit because no rational person would think this applied to everybody. But I don't know if this would apply to the case of purposely misrepresenting a groups standing.

 

[nutshell]

What about the fact that there's so many mormons? My teacher was mentioning that if there's such a large group, and nobody in particular is mentioned, that you can't really win a libel suit because no rational person would think this applied to everybody. But I don't know if this would apply to the case of purposely misrepresenting a groups standing.

Are you a law student?

 

[Aqualung]

Are you a law student?

No. But I wish I were, so I like to learn about it as much as possible.

 

[nutshell]

That's cool. After some quick googling it looks like Mormons may or may not have a claim depending on how large the group is and whether individuals are identifiable. Seems unlikely.

I think to be successful the plaintiff must also show that its reputation has been damaged. Given the membership increases and financial success of the Church, I doubt any damages could be proved.