Dalzell v. Margaret

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that statements in a published work were non-actionable opinions because they were preceded by an extensive factual discussion, such that the author \can only be said to have expressed his own opinion after having outlined all the facts that serve as the basis for his conclusion\
• finding that the general tenor of a “made-for-television movie” or 15 “docudrama” “tends to negate the impression that the statements involved 16 represented a false assertion of objective fact”
• explaining that “[t]he courts of appeals that have considered defamation claims after Milkovich have consistently held that when a speaker outlines the factual basis for his conclusion, his statement is” not actionable for defamation; citing cases
• explaining that defendant’s book was “a forum in which a reader would be likely to recognize that [his] critiques . . . generally represent[ed] the highly subjective opinions of the author rather than assertions of verifiable, objective facts”
• considering multiple levels of context in evaluating actionability of allegedly defamatory statements
• emphasizing the need to provide “room for expressions of opinion by commentators, experts in a field, figures closely involved in a public controversy, or others whose perspectives might be of interest to the public”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).