Sports

The 'His Reputation Is Such Trash My Client Couldn't Have Defamed Him' Defense!

Which living people are truly libel-proof, with reputations so bad that defamation ceases to exist.

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Does anybody else remember that his nickname used to be Ron “No Decision” Darling? (Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Citi)

Of all the bold arguments to make in a defamation case, right up there with “sure I got a massage but I kept my underwear on,” is the full frontal assault on damages of declaring that the plaintiff’s reputation is so terrible that there’s no potential for defamation. It’s the nuclear option of defamation arguments, the sort of “yeah and so what?” response that can only be met with an “oh snap.”

Ron Darling wrote a book about his baseball career and included in it an account of Lenny Dykstra going on a racist rant about a black pitcher. Dykstra has sued for defamation and Darling’s legal team has decided to go aggressive:

“Dykstra is a classic libel-proof plaintiff, whose reputation is so bad that he simply cannot be defamed,” Darling’s lawyer, Michael G. Berger, says in a motion asking a judge to toss Dykstra’s April defamation suit.

…

In his new motion, Darling’s side says that it has been widely publicized that Dykstra is a convicted felon — who did prison time for fraud and money laundering — a drug user, a liar, a doper, a blackmailer and a sexual predator.

And, “pertinent to his Complaint, Dykstra has been publicly referred to for years as a homophobe, misogynist, and racist whose bigotry is undeniable,” the motion says.

Dykstra’s attorney rejects this claim and asserts that his client will ultimately prevail. UPDATE: Dykstra reached out to Above the Law to also point out that “NOT one teammate is backing up [Darling’s] tale, but plenty are backing me up,” which, when you think about it, in and of itself may speak to whether or not someone can be defamed — if they have folks willing to back them on the facts, it says there’s an audience where the plaintiff could be defamed.

But it’s got us thinking… is there anyone currently alive who simply cannot be defamed? Sure you can’t really besmirch Hitler or Roy Cohn at this point, but is there someone still out there kicking who’s cultivated a reputation so atrocious that there’s just nothing anyone can say that could incur actionable damages? That may be a short list, but someone who’s done enough that certain otherwise libelous tags (e.g. racist, sexist, homophobic) can’t land a blow on a person’s character?

That list feels like it should be a lot longer than we generally pretend it is.

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Ron Darling’s lawyer: Lenny Dykstra’s reputation is so bad it ‘cannot be defamed’ [NY Post]

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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