ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the principles and application of libel law. It discusses the libel terminology and the legal burden borne by the plaintiff suing for libel. The chapter reviews the libel damage awards. Most early libel law was criminal law. Governments adopted criminal libel statutes to prevent breaches of the peace and punish criticism of government. In the 20th and 21st centuries, most libel cases in the United States are civil suits. Defamation may restrict a person's social contacts by asserting that the individual has a mental illness or a particularly undesirable and contagious disease. Libel plaintiffs, in addition to establishing that an expression is defamatory, must also prove that the defamatory language is about them individually. The publication of defamation, in the legal sense, requires at least three persons—the person uttering or publishing the defamation, the person being defamed, and a person hearing or seeing the defamation.
