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You Have The Right To Criticize This Casenote: Protecting Negative Reviews Within The Law Of Defamation And The First Amendment, David C. Vogel

Missouri Law Review

In Moldea v. New York Times Co., the District of Columbia Court of Appeals attempted to determine under what circumstances a statement labeled as opinion may be the basis for a defamation suit. The court approached the topic with some difficulty, as the United States Supreme Court's 1990 decision in Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. had created confusion in lower courts over not only the validity of several traditional tests used to distinguish between fact and opinion, but also as to whether placing statements in an opinion context provides them with blanket protection from liability, regardless of their content. The …