Opinion ID: 1190385
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Milkovich Analysis.

Text: In Milkovich, the United States Supreme Court's recent opinion in First Amendment libel jurisprudence, the Court refused to recognize, in addition to the established constitutional safeguards in the freedom of speech area, still another first amendment-based protection for defamatory statements that are categorized as `opinion' as opposed to `fact.' Milkovich, 497 U.S. at ___, 110 S.Ct. at 2705, 111 L.Ed.2d at 17. Thus, existing constitutional doctrine adequately secures the breathing space which freedoms of expression require in order to survive. Id., 497 U.S. at ___, 110 S.Ct. at 2706, 111 L.Ed.2d at 18. [13] One rule of that existing protective constitutional doctrine is that a statement of opinion relating to matters of public concern which does not contain a provably false connotation will receive full constitutional protection. Id. See, e.g., Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U.S. 767, 106 S.Ct. 1558, 89 L.Ed.2d 783 (1986). The doctrine also provides full protection for statements that cannot `reasonably [be] interpreted as stating actual facts' about an individual. Milkovich, 497 U.S. at ___, 110 S.Ct. at 2706, 111 L.Ed.2d at 19. See, e.g., Falwell, 485 U.S. at 50, 108 S.Ct. at 879, 99 L.Ed.2d at 48. As the Court stated in Milkovich, This provides assurance that public debate will not suffer for lack of `imaginative expression' or the `rhetorical hyperbole' which has traditionally added much to the discourse of our nation. Milkovich, 497 U.S. at ___, 110 S.Ct. at 2706, 111 L.Ed.2d at 19. As revealed by the Court's analysis of the statements reviewed in Milkovich, in determining whether an alleged defamatory falsehood purports to state or imply actual facts about an individual, a court must scrutinize the type of language used, the meaning of the statement in context, whether the statement is verifiable, and the broader social circumstances in which the statement was made. Id., 497 U.S. at ___, 110 S.Ct. at 2706-07, 111 L.Ed.2d at 18-19; and see dissenting opinion of Brennan, J., 497 U.S. at ___, 110 S.Ct. at 2709, 111 L.Ed.2d at 21.