MUJI 2d CV1607

To support a defamation claim, [name of plaintiff] must prove the statement at issue is defamatory. A statement may be false but not necessarily defamatory.

A statement is defamatory if it calls into question a person's honesty, integrity, virtue, or reputation and thereby exposes that person to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule in the eyes of the person to whom it is published or, if published to more than one person, to at least a substantial and respectable minority of its audience. A statement is not necessarily defamatory if it reports only that a person did things that you would not have done, or things of which you or other people might disapprove. A publication that is merely unpleasant, embarrassing, or uncomplimentary is not necessarily defamatory.

I already determined that the following statement(s) is/are capable of conveying a meaning that is defamatory: [insert statements].

Some statements may convey more than one meaning. For example, a statement may have one meaning that is defamatory and another meaning that is not. To support a defamation claim, [name of plaintiff] must prove, for each of these statements, that one or more of the recipients of the statement actually understood it in its defamatory sense-the sense that would expose [name of plaintiff] to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule. If a recipient did not actually understand a particular statement in its defamatory sense, then that statement cannot support a defamation claim.

You must determine whether the recipient actually understood the statement(s) in [its/their] defamatory sense.