Comments

1
Regardless of whether he sues his accuser or not, Urquhart's gotta go, he's clearly part of the problem, not the solution. He's in the news more than any other WA sheriff, and a lot of the time it's unfavorable to him or King county.

Even worse, lately he IS the story. And it sounds like he brought it on himself for the most part.
2
Dear legal students out there: Is it possible for a person to unknowingly defame themselves?
As I see it - Defamee is suing and defaming Defamer for using media to defame right before an election knowing it would make media to possibly clear his name but in reality adds to and furthers his own defamation.
3
@2: A successful defamation claim generally requires the plaintiff to prove that his reputation has actually been harmed by the untrue statement. An exception called defamation per se arises when the untrue statement is so explosive that it would utterly ruin anybody's reputation to the point of generating death threats or other harassing behaviors.

But it is possible for a plaintiff to so thoroughly ruin his own reputation that even very bad untrue statements can no longer damage his reputation, because he himself has already destroyed it. An archetypal example might be a porn star who objects to being called a slut or some similar, sexually derogatory name. There is no defamation claim for such plaintiffs, because there is no repetitional damage.

In Sheriff Urquhart's case, the accusation of sexual molestation is so explosive, the accusation probably constitutes defamation per se if the accusation is false. Although this lawsuit might not cast Urquhart in a good light, it does not utterly ruin his reputation as a non-molester; if anything, it projects a strong image of him as a non-molester.

5
I hope everyone really understands that one really cares.

Please wait...

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