Personal Injury & Torts
Mar. 3, 2015
Defaming the dead isn't nice, or actionable
Under current California law, a deceased person's reputation cannot be injured, and thus you cannot defame the deceased. Across the pond, though, a sea-change may be underway. By Karl de Costa
Maligning the memory of the deceased has been viewed as a reprehensible act since antiquity. The Latin aphorism "de mortuis nihil nisi bonum" - roughly, "speak nothing but good of the dead" - has been traced back millennia.
But morality, decency and good manners are not necessarily the stuff of civil legislation. Under current California law, and the law of most states, a deceased person's reputation cannot be i...
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