PJC Business 2024

D EFAMATION , B USINESS D ISPARAGEMENT & I NVASION OF P RIVACY

PJC 110.8

defamatory meaning by omitting or juxtaposing facts, even though all the story’s indi vidual statements considered in isolation were literally true or non-defamatory.”). “Just as the substantial truth doctrine precludes liability for a publication that correctly conveys a story’s ‘gist’ or ‘sting’ although erring in the details, [this rule] permit[s] liability for the publication that gets the details right but fails to put them in the proper context and thereby gets the story’s ‘gist’ wrong.” Turner , 38 S.W.3d at 115. The following instruction should be used when the plaintiff alleges that a publica tion as a whole creates a defamatory false impression: A publication is not true or substantially true if the entire publica tion, taken as a whole, creates a substantially false impression of the plaintiff by omitting material facts or suggestively juxtaposing true facts, even though each individual statement in the publication, con sidered in isolation, is true.

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