Articles Posted in Opinion

It doesn’t take a defamation expert to see the flaws in the $2 million libel lawsuit filed this week by Redskins owner Dan Snyder against the Washington City Paper. Mr. Snyder took offense at an article titled, “The Cranky Redskins Fan’s Guide to Dan Snyder: From A to Z (for Zorn), an Encyclopedia of the Owner’s Many Failings,” which contains a detailed list of reasons the author considered him a bad owner. Mr. Snyder also disapproved of an image of him, published with the article in question, on which someone had doodled devil horns and a mustache, which Mr. Snyder deemed “an anti-Semitic caricature of himself” which “forced” him to file the lawsuit. Talk about thin skin.

First of all, how ironic is it that Mr. Snyder claims he was forced to bring this lawsuit to protect his reputation and good name, and yet by virtue of suing the newspaper, he has stoked the interest of the media and triggered widespread public scrutiny into his prior activities, vastly increasing the number of people who will seek out and read The Cranky Redskins Fan’s Guide to Dan Snyder? Personally, I’m not a regular reader of the Washington City Paper and would never have known about the alleged defamatory statements had Mr. Snyder not called my attention to them by suing the paper. Mr. Snyder and his lawyers have alerted the otherwise complacent populace to a long list of alleged bad acts by the Redskins owner. Even if he wins the case, will he really have done himself and his reputation any favors by suing an outspoken critic?

But he won’t win. As I explained in an earlier blog post, not just any hurtful or offensive comment will constitute libel or slander upon which a plaintiff could successfully sue for millions of dollars. Defamation liability requires the publication of a false factual statement that concerns and harms the plaintiff or the plaintiff’s reputation. Statements of opinion, regardless of how unfavorable the opinion, are not actionable. Thus, calling Mr. Snyder a failure, likening him to the devil, and referring to the “stain” he supposedly left on the Redskins are all constitutionally protected as free speech.