Opinion ID: 1190385
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading:  The type of language used.

Text: The kind of language used may signal readers that a writer is not purporting to state or imply actual, known facts. In Milkovich, the Court referred to Greenbelt Coop. Publishing Ass'n, Inc. v. Bresler, 398 U.S. 6, 90 S.Ct. 1537, 26 L.Ed.2d 6 (1970), where the Court held that the word blackmail, when used by a newspaper to characterize a land developer's negotiation position with the city, was not slander when spoken and not libel when written. The Court explained that even the most careless reader must have perceived that the word was no more than rhetorical hyperbole, a vigorous epithet used by those who considered [the developer's] negotiating position extremely unreasonable. Greenbelt, 398 U.S. at 14, 90 S.Ct. at 1542, 26 L.Ed.2d at 15. In Falwell, the Court held an ad parody could not reasonably have been interpreted as stating actual facts about the public figure involved. Id., 485 U.S. at 50, 108 S.Ct. at 879, 99 L.Ed.2d at 48. In Old Dominion Branch No. 496, Nat'l Ass'n of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO v. Austin, 418 U.S. 264, 284-86, 94 S.Ct. 2770, 2781-82, 41 L.Ed.2d 745, 762-63 (1974), the Court found the word traitor in a literary definition of a union scab was not actionable since it was used in a loose, figurative sense and was merely rhetorical hyperbole, a lusty and imaginative expression of the contempt felt by union members. Abusive epithets, vulgarities and profanities are nonactionable. Rodney Smolla, Law of Defamation § 4.03, at 4-09 to -10 and § 6.12[10], at 6-52 (1991); see cases cited therein. The ad hominem nature of such language easily identifies it as rhetorical hyperbole which, as a matter of law, cannot reasonably be understood as statement of fact. Clearly falling into this category are Hustler's statements characterizing Dworkin as: `little guy' militant lesbian feminist, a shit-squeezing sphincter in her own right, one of the most foul-mouthed, abrasive manhaters on Earth, a repulsive presence, a cry-baby who can dish out criticism but clearly can't take it, Spence's foaming-at-the-mouth client, and a censor. Under prevailing constitutional First Amendment safeguards, that language cannot, as a matter of law, form the basis for a defamation claim.