Can I sue him for spreading the lie that I have AIDS?
Dear Mrs Macaulay,
A young man whose advances I shunned has been going around telling everyone that I have been intimate with a number of men, and that because I have lost weight lately, I have AIDS. The truth is that I am a virgin and he is lying. I want to know if there is any way that the courts can help, because right now I’m being ostracised in my community because of what he did, the people at work scorn me, and my family has to be thinking about sending me to live with relatives. I am 19 years old.
– Defamed
Dear Defamed,
It is a straightforward process to sue anyone of legal age (adults – persons 18 years and over) for damages for wrongs which have caused you injury or loss. You could do it yourself or get an attorney-at-law to act for you. The attorney will get all the facts from you and then determine whether you have a cause of action and if you do, whether you can prove it by available evidence.
The cause of action is the question of whether what you want to sue for is accepted in law and is actionable. You see, some bad things can be done to people and yet you cannot win the case in court if you sue the person who did the act, because it is not actionable for any one of several reasons.
I am sad to say that you will not succeed if you sue this man about the statements that you have had sex with many men.
I am really sorry because what you have told me made me really angry, but it is the sort of thing a person who is not a real man would do. He is not a gentleman, and I do not refer to gentleness of any kind, but that he lacks that self confidence and pride which separates the real men from the pretenders.
A judge will have to be convinced to treat as actionable, this vicious slander this person has been spreading about you. As the law stands at present, if your were married and this person spread the slander that you had been intimate with several men, it is actionable. As a married woman, if you sued and proved the publication (spreading) of the slander, you would not have to prove that it damaged your reputation in order to be awarded some damages, because it is actionable per se. That is, you would only have to prove the fact of the publication and the content and that you are married. Of course a person can win the case, and the judge may only award a very small sum in damages. The sum awarded would depend on how seriously the judge takes the slander.
If the slander was that you were guilty of a particular crime, or you had participated in a crime, you would again not have to prove that you suffered damage as a result of the publication in order to succeed and to be awarded damages.
The part that you have AIDS is actionable per se. The law is that spreading news that a person has a communicable disease, when it is untrue, is actionable per se. So you can sue him for this vicious slander and it is my opinion that you should get substantial damages. The fact that he started this vicious attack to destroy your standing and reputation because you rebuffed his advances ought to present an aggravated circumstance to the defamation. It may, and I personally think it should, give cause for exemplary damages to be awarded to you.
One thing is certain, you were so right to reject this person. He is certainly not the kind of person any decent young woman would wish to have around them.
Small and petty men have always attacked women in this way when their advances are rejected, or they talk of them as if they had indeed been intimate with them, when in fact, the woman had made it clear that she was not interested even if he was the last man in the world. A gentleman would merely accept the woman’s decision and move on.
Anyway, please take action in court and also do not be afraid or embarrassed to set the record straight. Talk to our lawyer and good luck.
Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law and a women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com.
