As I understand the law of defamation (libel) you would be liable for any republication of an unsubstantiated incident if the original publication was defamatory. No change or modification would be sufficient unless it (a) changed the meaning or (b) clearly protected the identity of the individual -- and if readers would be able to determine the identity by going back to the original source that would likely not be enough. This of course assumes the original publication is defamatory.
Harvey Perlman
Univ. of Nebraska Law College
Received on Wed Jan 26 1994 - 01:17:40 GMT
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