Court Sends Social Media Defamation Case Back to Trial Court to Award Compensatory Damages
Although this case does not involve local governments, it is an interesting case involving social media posts and a defamation lawsuit. Sullivan v. Schiman.
A patient posted on a local "updates and information" Facebook page about a doctor she had seen in the emergency room. Her post named the doctor and claimed that he had sexually assaulted her in giving a rectal examination. That Facebook post was then made a "featured post" by the Facebook page's administrator, which meant it was the first post on that Facebook page. When the doctor learned about the post, he filed a complaint against both the patient and the Facebook page's administrator alleging defamation "per se" among other claims. The case went to trial, and testimony by a nurse who was present during the exam contradicted the claims made by the patient in her Facebook post. At the end of the trial, the judge found in favor of the doctor on his defamation claim against both defendants, and awarded him $1.00 in nominal damages from both the poster and the page administrator.
The doctor appealed on two grounds. First, the doctor claimed the trial court erred in awarding only $1.00 in damages. Second, the doctor argued that the trial court should have imposed sanctions against the page administrator and his attorney for providing false answers in discovery.
The Appellate Court agreed with the doctor on both issues. First, the Appellate Court ruled that nominal damages were not reasonable in this case where several thousand people saw the Facebook post accusing him of a violent sexual assault, which, among other things, would support an award of compensatory damages rather than only nominal damages. Defamation "per se" occurs when a false statement is so inherently harmful that the damage to a person's reputation is obvious on its face, meaning the doctor did not need to prove actual monetary or special damages. The Appellate Court also found that the trial court abused its discretion in denying sanctions for the discovery violations. The Appellate Court sent the case back to the trial court to enter an appropriate award of damages and to reevaluate the sanctions request.
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