Legal Term: DEFAMATION

Definition: tort. The speaking slanderous words of a person so as, de bona fama aliquid detrahere, to hurt his good fame. Vide Slander. 2. In the United States, the remedy for defamation is by an action on the case, where the words are slanderous. 3. In England, besides the remedy by action, proceedings may be instituted in the ecclesiastical court for redress of the injury. The punishment for defamation, in this court, is payment of costs and penance enjoined at the discretion of the judge. When the slander has been privately uttered, the penance may be ordered to be performed in a private place, when publicly uttered, the sentence must be public, as in the church of the parish of the defamed party, in time of divine service,, and the defamer may be required publicly to pronounce that by such words, naming them, as set forth in the sentence, he had defamed the plaintiff, and, therefore, that he begs pardon, first, of God, and then of the party defamed, for uttering such words. Clerks Assist. 225, 3 Burns Eccl. Law, Defamation, pl. 14, 2 Chit. Pr. 471 Cooke on Def.

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