Chandra Levy's parents say they are suspicious of Gary Condit, but they do not come right out and say he is definitely guilty. Their lawyer may have told them that it was not slander to state that you are suspicious of someone.

Some people on the forums say that everyone is entitled to an opinion, therefore expressing an opinion is not legal slander.

So does anyone have a clear idea of what slander is in terms of legalities?

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PUBLICATION
A "publication" of defamatory matter is its communication to a person other than the plaintiff, who understands its defamatory meaning and its application to the plaintiff. To be a publication, the communication also must be made intentionally or negligently.


&pip; TOP &pip;

For example, suppose that, in an argument on the street, a lot of yelling takes place, then one of the participants in the argument screams to another, "You're mother wears Army boots!" (or something even worse, if you can imagine anything worse than that). This person cannot be successfully sued for slander because of the context. It is improper to assume that the person was claiming that this was a true statement; it was an insult made during an argument, not intended to be truthful testimony about someone's attire. And it is to be assumed that no one takes such statements seriously.

So in a way, the hotheads are doing us all a favor in helping our little discussions to be classified as heated arguments by crazed and obsessed individuals. Nor should we complain when no one takes us seriously; this cloud has its silver lining.

Altogether, it seems like there are very vague distinctions about what slander really is.