Yesterday I wrote about the statute of limitations for an action for libel or slander, which is one year. But when does the clock start running, or in legal terms, when the does the action begin to accrue? For torts, the answer is generally when the injury occurred. But that's not always the case. In some situations, courts will apply the so-called "Discovery Rule." This rule holds that the statute of limitations will not begin to run on a cause of action until such time the injured party discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the defendant's alleged defamation.
However, in Shively v. Bozanich (2003) 31 Cal.4th 1230, the court held:
"[w]hen the basis for a claim has been published in the public record or has been the subject of publicity, several cases have declined to apply the discovery rule, commenting that the plaintiff may be expected to be sufficiently diligent to discover the basis for his or her claim within the statutory period."
Does this seem fair to you? And how would it apply to defamatory remarks buried in the deep, dark recesses of the Internet?
Maybe we can glean something from the court's following remarks:
"We can see no justification for applying the discovery rule to delay the accrual of plaintiff's causes of action beyond the point at which their factual basis became accessible to plaintiff to the same degree as it was accessible to every other member of the public."
I interpret this to mean that the discovery rule does not apply when the basis for a defamation lawsuit is contained in information available to the public. Since courts have held that information on the internet is public, I believe that under the Shively holding, the discovery rule would not apply in situations where internet defamation involved.
That means you have one year to file a defamation lawsuit from the time it gets published or posted to the Internet.
Does this seem fair to you? I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.
No. It doesn’t seem fair.
I was defamed by a Newspaper. My employer fired me based on this. My Union then assured me that I would be reinstated. The Union then stalled for years. It wasn’t until 4 years later that the Union decided not to grieve my case which then caused all statutes of limitations to run. It wasn’t until then that I realized my damages from lost wages were now not recoverable.
If you have a reasonable assumption and what you assume is buried in evidence in the hands of defendant, wouldn’t that toll the statute? If evidence the defamed party proves to be correct, is defamatory and effected a person character causing harm and was supported and confirmed upon discovery of documentation and transmissions?
If I was libeled unknowingly for 4 years then the identity of the libelious party was not clear until 17 months ago and two weeks ago, then when does discovery begin if it has been confused by several different law firms in their letterheads? Confusion regarding the liable party was deliberately caused by one of the defendants giving rise to the notion that fingerprinting occurred for years and a Fed courtcase occurred in 2016 but by that time I was living in my car Bc I was pedophilic libeled and treated as such by my employer, law enforcement, the courts, and any IMO us sources thst it’s nearly impossible to find the accountable party when your almost dead. Do the information destroys your life to being homeless and they expect me to know what happened from a deposition where I was handed some copies of pedophilic background reports which didn’t get a reaction from anyone like it didn’t mean anything but my insurance licenses were revoked some 9 years later and I wasn’t given a court case on the source of the information until 2019 for a case ruled upon in my favor in late 2016. What about FACTA? Who can keep track of federal court cases while living in their car trying to survive? Doesn’t anyone get this crap? I’m tired of being ignored to point of insanity. How can billion dollars companies comprised of humans act so inhuman? Just wrote my pro se order to show cause after being concussed by my neighbor who caused it to be submitted 9 hoours after midnight on due date so I’m getting doc note tomorrow to submit to court and the guy is an ignorant fool Bc I gave him the instructions to get retroactive unemployment bug he decided to go psychotic instead and thought my GF was his Bc of NY accent do he tried to lnock me out the minute I sat down to write it and I definitely was concussed Bc I couldn’t write anything over the last weekend. I stated it in my pro de order to show cause which discusses my rare personality type misunderstood by everyone basically since it’s called INFJ snd MLK, Ghanndi, al Pacino, Adam Sandler, Keanu reeves, and Jesus were this rare type of only .5% of the male population which has mischaracterized me horribly