Overview of court c a se
The Rosenblatt v. Baer case was argued on the tension existing between an individual's freedom of speech and the right to protect people against defamation. The Rosenblatt v. Baer case of 1966 was argued on October 20, 1965, and decided on the warren court on February 21, 1966 (Rosenbl att V. Baer, n.d ). The respondent (Baer) sued the petitioner (Rosenblatt) for defamation grounded on the alleged defamatory statements that the petitioner made in his newspaper's editorial column. Rosenblatt had questioned the respondent's work by explaining that Baer and the county commissioner to whom he reported, failed to develop the Belknap recreational area to its full potential ( Vile, n.d ). The article that Baer claimed to have defamatory to him was written after he had been replaced. The columnist only wrote about the recreational area's improved state and did not mention the respondent in the column ( Vile, n.d ). Baer won the where the jury awarded him damages, and the state supreme court found no bar on the New York Times Co v. Sullivan, which was decided after this trial.
Leg a l Issues in the C ase
The case brought about the long-standing legal issue of first amendment rights of free speech and press that clash with defamation law. Defamation is defined as a statement, either libel or slander, that will result in the injury of a third party's reputation (Defamation, n.d). The elements of defamation include proving four things as follows; false statements purporting to be fact, some form of harm caused by the statement to the entity or individual, a fault that amounts to at least negligence, and communication or publication of the defamatory statement to a third party (Defamation, n.d). This law has been used to protect individuals from the gross effects of slander and libel while also ensuring that news companies exercise a degree of responsibility to disseminate information ( Elder, 1984 ). However, it has also resulted in a situation where individuals seem to suffer self-censorship as the statements they make may be considered defamation as in this case.
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Thoughts on the c ase
Looking at the case in question, it is evident that defamation law was not broken. Baer was supposed to prove th at all the four elements of defamation had been met for him to win the case. He did not suffer from the libel against him as he had already been relieved off his position when the column was written on the improved state of the recreational area. He had tried to prove that the petitioner's statements were directed to him by sighting various proofs on how the petitioner imputed mismanagement of the respondent (Rosenbl att V. Baer, n.d ). Unfortunately, these words had no mention of his name whatsoever in the article that he claimed to have defamed him. The respondent did not prove that the claims made by the petitioner were false statements contending as facts. Granted that the superior court explained that the ruling on the Sullivan case did not apply to the Rosenblatt case, he had also failed to show how statements met the malice standard of defamation law (Rosenbl att V. Baer, n.d ). As such, the actual defamation elements for this particular case were not met.
With these facts in mind, the defamation case does not stand as the respondent's extensive proofs did not prove all the four defamation elements. I, therefore, do not agree with the court ruling on the Rosenblatt v. Baer case. I believe that Rosenblatt was not guilty of defamation, and therefore Baer was not supposed to have been awarded any damages. It is Rosenblatt who suffered as his constitutional freedom of speech was infringed upon.
References
Defamation. (n.d). https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation
Elder, D. (1984). Defamation, Public Officialdom and the Rosenblatt v. Baer Criteria-A Proposal for Revivification: Two Decades after New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. Buff. L. Rev. , 33 , 579. https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1736&context=buffalolawreview
Rosenblatt V. Baer. (n.d). https://www.oyez.org/cases/1965/38
Vile, J., R. (n.d). Rosenblatt v. Baer (1966). https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/602/rosenblatt-v-baer
