Can video game companies sue for slander or defamation So I know this may turn into a large debate, but I just want to address the question if video game companies could sue the people saying that they are causing mass shootings for slander or defamation? If they could, do they not do it because they are unlikely to win or are there other reasons? Also I have very little background in law so please explain it in detail, I'm not even sure what the difference between the two are. Please stay on topic of the question.
Such a lawsuit would be unsuccessful in the United States, given the numerous barriers imposed by the First Amendment. First, a plaintiff can only win a defamation case if it proves that the defamatory statement was false. If a statement cannot be proven false, it is legally considered a statement of opinion, which is protected by the First Amendment. Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 19 (1990) (&quot;[A] statement on matters of public concern must be provable as false before there can be liability under state defamation law.&quot;) Second, statements about public figures or matters of public concern can only be the basis of defamation liability if the plaintiff can prove &quot;actual malice,&quot; which means that the defendant either knew what he was saying was false or had a &quot;a high degree of awareness of . . . the probable falsity&quot; of his statements. Harte-Hanks Communs. v. Connaughton, 491 U.S. 657 (1989). Even with actual malice regarding statements of fact, the defamatory statement is considered in context, not in isolation. So a newspaper headline that is incorrect would probably not result in liability if the full article was correct. And the question is not whether that statement of fact, considered in context, is literally false, but rather whether the &quot;sting&quot; or &quot;gist&quot; of the statement was false. Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp. v. Hoeper, 571 U.S. 237, 247 (2014) (&quot;A statement is not considered false unless it would have a different effect on the mind of the reader from that which the pleaded truth would have produced.&quot;). For example, saying &quot;John shot his wife&quot; would probably not be defamatory if John shot at his wife and missed, or if he beat her unconscious with a gun, or even if he stabbed or poisoned her. John's reputation is damaged because he tried to kill his wife, not because of the precise way he did it. Applied to video-game manufacturers, these rules effectively kill a defamation action. First, they have to prove both (a) that it's possible to say whether video games cause mass shootings; and (b) that video games definitely don't cause mass shootings. That requirement probably kills the case already, because that research doesn't exist. Even if it did, the manufacturers would then need to prove actual malice, meaning either that the defendant knew about that research, or that the defendant knew that what they were saying was probably false. I don't know how anyone could prove all that, and even if they did, they'd still have questions about the &quot;sting&quot; and broader context of the statements, making this case a serious loser. While I doubt that video games are causing mass shootings, I also doubt that the people who say otherwise believe they are correct. Generally speaking, the First Amendment protects people who make mistakes. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 271–72 (1964) (&quot;Erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate, and ... it must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the breathing space that they need to survive.&quot;)
In my opinion, you are totally free to publish the information. There are two areas of law that can be cosidered - private and public law. In the private law area, you can be liable for revealing trade secrets, but only if you agreed to keep them by a contract. Trade secrets do not exist by themselves (there are minor exceptions, eg. in competition law, but those do not concern us), they must be protected by contracts. Another private limitations, like libel laws, won't apply here. This is not uncommon, but not in cars - you can find clauses like these in software license agreements. Then there is the public area. Is there any regulation, any policy of the state, that prevents you from publishing it? I am not aware you whole legal code of your state, but I doubt there is. It would be a harsh limitation of freedom of speech. Even if the modification could lead to illegal effect (like, modifying toy weapon to kill by rising its power...) it would be only illegal under very rare circumstances. To conclude it - freedom of speech can be limited only if there is sufficient public interest to do so, and I don't see any.
No. Causing someone "pain and suffering" is not against the law; it is merely one kind of damages that can be awarded when someone has done something that is against the law. You may, for instance, endure pain and suffering from a car accident or shooting, in which case you could collect damages for your pain and suffering after proving that the other party committed the torts of negligence or battery, which are illegal. But if you were enduring pain and suffering from the last episode of Lost, you could not collect damages for your pain and suffering because it is not against the law to write a crappy finale. So in your case, cannot sue for pain and suffering based simply on the existence of a secret audio recording. North Carolina allows secret audio recordings, and it does not make exceptions for audio recordings that hurt someone's feelings. But to go beyond your explicit question, there still remains the possibility that you could pursue a legal action. If the other party used that recording in a way that violated the law, that might give rise to a tort that would support an award of damages for pain and suffering. If they publicly distributed a recording of themselves having sex with someone, that might constitute the tort of public disclosure of private facts. If they edited the recording to make it sound like someone had said something that they had not and then gave it to someone else, that might be grounds for a libel action.
What legal options do I have here? I don't think I can sue for defamation of character since the email was sent to me only. Your rationale about defamation is accurate with respect to the establishment (henceforth "company"). But you may sue the person(s) who approached the company to falsely accuse you of that crime. Being banned certainly qualifies as special damage (that is, concrete damage), whence you have a viable claim of defamation per quod. If the crime that was falsely imputed to you is a felony or serious crime, then you additionally have a viable claim of defamation per se. I was thinking that I may have some legal recourse since the email clearly threatens to defame my character if I re-enter the establishment You have legal remedies, although not necessarily from this angle. The company can credibly argue that it sought to discourage you from contravening the "safety measure" it adopted in response to the accusations made about you. If it turns out that the company fabricated any false accusations it divulges, though, then you could sue the company for torts related to --and in addition to-- its defamatory falsehoods. So far the information you share here shows no signs of company's involvement in inventing the false accusations. What legal options do I have here? You need to ask the company for source and details of the information. In line with this comment, you should also ensure the company is aware of the mistaken identity. If the company declines to listen to you --and ideally see any proofs you have--, that could evidence some sort of tortious conduct on the company's part. Beware that in Florida a defamed person is required to demand a retraction of the false accusations prior to filing a defamation suit. Absent that request for retraction, it will be very easy for the sued defamer(s) to have your complaint dismissed. If the company refuses to disclose the source of the false information, then you need to seek injunctive relief in court. That means suing the company so as to (1) compel the company to identify the person(s) who accused you, and perhaps (2) strike the ban that the company put in place as a result of the false accusations. Even if you don't prevail in striking the ban, the court proceedings would give you the occasion to set the record straight and prevent the company from defaming you if you legitimately expose (to the public) the arbitrariness of its ban. To be clear, the company can always indulge in defaming you for the sake of justifying its ban, although that would be dumb in light of what you will have proved in court by then. In jurisdictions where a request for retraction is not mandatory, a plaintiff who does not know the identity of his defamer(s) may (1) file suit against "Doe defendants", (2) subpoena the non-party company so as to obtain records related to the false accusations (obviously ensuring that these reveal the authorship thereof), and (3) upon production of subpoena records and requesting the identified defamer for a retraction, amend the complaint to properly identify the defendant. This would be more efficient than filing two suits (one for injunctive relief against the company, and another against the defamers). However, I am uncertain of whether this would work in Florida, given its pre-suit requirement of request for retraction.
Sometimes In general, intentionally false speech gets less protection than other speech, and in some cases it is unprotected. The classic example of speech that is unprotected is "Falsely shouting FIRE in a crowded theater". Note that this is both intentionally false and highly likely to be seriously harmful to multiple uninvolved people. On the other hand, the classic case of New York Times vs Sullivan said that, at least when the subjects were public officials (later broadened to public figures) it was not enough to prove simple falsehood in a defamation case, one must prove "actual malice" (an unfortunate term) which in this context means statements that are either knowingly false or are made with reckless disregard for the truth. The court in that case said, in effect, that if a newspaper had to be sure that its every statement could be proved true in every detail, it would be unwilling to vigorously report on matters of significant public concern (this is a paraphrase, I'll add a quote later). Opinions are considered legally not to be either false or true. "President Jone is the worst leader the US has ever had" Is a statement of opinion, and so is not defamation. Moreover, in political contexts, attempts to punish false statements of fact that are not defamatory have been held unconstitutional. One example was the "Stolen Valor" act, which punished falsely claiming to have been awarded a medal by the US armed forces. This was held to be against the First Amendment. In general, regulation of speech (which here includes writing and other forms of communication) must be fairly narrowly drawn and must have good reasons behind them to survive a court challenge. How much so depends on the nature of the law, and particularly whether it is "content-neutral" or not. Details and cites to come when i have a little more time.
Partial answer (other parts of an answer would be jurisdiction specific): Would this constitute a slander lawsuit against the group of employees and outside agency? The employee falsely alleged to be mentally ill would be the plaintiff who would be the only person who would have standing to bring suit. The person allegedly making a false statement to someone other than the employee alleged to be mentally ill (an action which is called &quot;publication&quot; of a false statement) would be the defendant(s). Listening to an allegedly false statement about someone is not slander, nor is believing it to be true. In the U.S., in most cases, knowledge of the truth or reckless disregard for the truth (or at least negligence in getting the facts wrong in private persons cases not involving a public interest) is necessary to establish liability. Someone who doesn't know that a statement is false and has some basis to believe it is true, can't be guilty of slander. In many non-U.S. jurisdictions, slander liability is possible without knowledge that the statement made is false (and without reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the statement). Also, it matter who the &quot;outside agency&quot; is in this case. Governmental agencies are typically immune from liability for slander for statements made in the course of their official duties. Without a fuller understanding of who is saying something and why, it is hard to evaluate the claim appropriately.
There does seem to be a meme in the UAE of people threatening legal action for negative reviews, as a form of defamation. The police will simply tell them that this is not a crime, go hire a lawyer if you want to sue them. If you block them, perhaps they don't have any other way to contact you (seems that was the point of blocking them), which means that you cannot receive their offer &quot;If you pay us AED 1,000 we will not sue you&quot;, which could be a problem if they win their court case. Still, it is perfectly legal to ignore or block them, up to the point that you are actually served with legal papers. When they actually sue you, &quot;blocking&quot; is irrelevant, they will hire a process server to hand you the legal papers that command you to appear in court.
Yes a company can be sued (since anyone can sue anyone). But in order to win a lawsuit, you have to have damages as a result of some action, AND you must prove that the action was done with intent to harm or was otherwise negligent. So following your website example, a lot of things would have to happen: The website would have to be hacked. If the passwords are encrypted instead of hashed (which still qualifies as "plain-text" once they email it to you), the hacker would have to figure out how to decrypt the passwords. (Which a good hacker could probably do.) The hacker would have to take those passwords and do something with them that causes damage to their owners. Even if all of those things happened, you would still also have to prove negligence on their part which would be pretty difficult to do because the flaw that was hacked would be the focus of negligence discussions moreso than what was stolen. That being said, if your goal is simply to get them to fix the problem, rather than receive monetary damages, then you could still sue for an action to be taken. You'd have to pay by the hour for the attorney since they wouldn't have a chance of winning monetary damages. But in all likelihood the website owner, upon seeing the lawsuit, would fix the problem before it gets to court, so I could see that having the desired effect. That is if you think it's worth the cost of filing the lawsuit in the first place. Perhaps you could save yourself the cost of an attorney and just threaten to sue if they don't fix the problem.