Sally is an accountant at a small firm in town. She does the books for a number of small businesses on behalf of her firm and otherwise lives a quiet life in town. She walks her dog in the morning, takes Zumba classes after work, and occasionally meets friends for drinks on Friday evenings. Most of her clients barely know her, and they like it that way because she does just what they want her to do: quietly making sure the company is in compliance with all of its employment and tax obligations. Beth runs the local outlet of a new national web-based news service called Dirt Patch that specializes in finding and uncovering very local scandals. Her news site really took off when it first started based on the fact that an independent insurance agent named Tom Hartford had been caught sending kickbacks to local officials who steered government departments to buy policies from Tom's company to meet their insurance needs. The insurer was able to use those insurance contracts to burnish his reputation among small business owners and he managed to become very wealthy while driving other insurers out of business. Once Beth's site broke the news it became a hot topic on NextDoor, in various local Facebook groups, and was even picked up by bigger news outlets who praised her site for its work uncovering this important small town scandal. Beth's site later exposed some high profile sex scandals in town, including a very busy brothel being run out of a quiet cul-de-sac in a prosperous bedroom community. For a while, her site seemed to constantly be generating buzz, Lately, though, Beth hasn't been able to find any new scandals to write about and her site is in danger of going under. One day after a Zumba class she meets Sally and learns about her accounting practice. She takes Sally out for drinks in hopes of uncovering some dirt about local businesses but she finds nothing. Desperate, she makes up a story alleging that the quiet but pretty accountant, Sally, is a mediocre bookkeeper but has somehow managed to build a very successful practice, despite her so-so business smarts. How did she rack up all these clients? She slept with them, of course! Despite Sally's quiet personality, she happens to be a very sexy looking accountant so this completely baseless story catches fire thanks to some "glamor shots" a former boyfriend sold to Beth which then accompanied her story. Before she published the story the former boyfriend told Beth that he was only kind of surprised by this story since he always suspected something like this after she dumped him. "I mean, who would dump a guy like me without having some ulterior motive, am I right?" Wow, Beth thinks, maybe it's even true? How great would that be! Once the story comes out Sally's male clients all start to drop her, fearing their wives will think that they are sleeping with her. For weeks she tries to stop the spread of this false story but instead it gets picked up by all the local papers and, on an especially slow news day, even by some national television outlets. Sally's face is now nationally known! For a few weeks Sally is paralyzed and can't figure out what to do. She then is let go by her accounting firm and decides it's time to get revenge. She sues Beth and her company for libel. Beth then files a motion to dismiss, claiming that, since Sally is a public figure, she must show actual malice in order to win, and that is such a high bar that she can't possibly clear it. As evidence of Sally's national notoriety, Beth submits copies of articles from the Washington Post, the New York Post, and screen shots from Fox News. She also claims the former boyfriend gave her the story, a claim he denies vociferously. Will Beth succeed in her motion?

		No. Beth made the story up out of whole cloth and Sally only became famous after the made-up scandal was published. At the time the story appeared she was in no way a public figure and her former boyfriend's comment was obviously conjecture on which Beth didn't even base her story. Her desperation for a new story led her to maliciously invent one.
		Yes, because the boyfriend emphatically backed up the story and truth is an absolute defense to allegations of libel.
		Yes, because she is famous and New York Times v. Sullivan says that where a story is about a public figure, there must be a showing of actual malice and there is nothing malicious about Beth's actions.

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

ANSWER B is the correct answer B Yes because the boyfriend emphatically backed up the story and truth is an absolute defense to allegations of libel T... View the full answer