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Strategies & Market Trends : Anthony @ Equity Investigations, Dear Anthony, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GC who wrote (75269)	3/12/2002 11:22:14 PM
From: Anthony@Pacific	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 122087

1981 -- First home camcorders came on the market as successors to 8mm home movies. IBM introduced the Personal Computer. In Blouin v. Anton (1981), a candidate for local political office called his opponent a "horse's ass, a jerk, an idiot and paranoid." Lower court called it rhetorical hyperbole, protected by the First Amendment. Rhetorical hyperbole is protected because the language is so expansive that the reader or listener knows it is only an opinion, not an assertion of fact. Since opinion is not verifiable as are facts, they cannot be the basis of a finding of libel. The statement "John robbed a bank" is a verifiable fact and if not true is libel; "John is ugly" is not a verifiable fact, it is opinion so it cannot be said that it is libel because it is not true. So in Kirk v CBS (1987), a TV commentator said a chiropractor was part of an "international network of medical quackery" and that his patients were victims of "cancer con artists" and "unscrupulous charlatans." Lower court called it rhetorical hyperbole. In Renner v. Donsbach (1990), a statement that a physician was "hiding behind a medical establishment that is murdering people" was held to be rhetorical hyperbole. In Moyer v. Amador Valley Joint Union High School District (1990), a teacher was described as a "babbler." Lower court called it rhetorical hyperbole.