The Social Foundations of Defamation in Trial Court: Why Cases Begin and How They End

Abstract This article reports the results of a study of defamation cases in trial court. Robert Post’s conjecture that reputation comprises three distinct concepts forms the basis for the study’s central variable. The study develops and empirically tests a framework for understanding why defamation cases begin and how they end. The results show that the social characteristics of defamation cases, and especially how complainants describe their reputations, reveal predictable patterns of behavior. The study is based on a review of thousands of pages of documents in the trial court files of 337 defamation cases from Wisconsin. The implications of the study for development of the common law of defamation, for renewed attention to criminal defamation, and for teaching students about defamation are discussed.