A corporation has no character like a natural person to defend, but a defamatory charge which directly affects its credit and injures its business reputation is an actionable one. On the other hand as a corporation must transact its business and perform its duties through natural persons it is now well settled that a corporation is liable in damages for slander, as it is for other torts.
Slanderous words that are actionable have been thus classified by the United States Supreme Court: "(1) words falsely spoken of a person which impute to the party the commission of some criminal offense involving moral turpitude, for which the party, if the charge be true, may be indicted and punished; (2) words falsely spoken of a person which impute that the party is infected with some infectious disease, where, if the charge is true, it would exclude him from society; (3) defamatory words falsely spoken of a person which impute to the party unfitness to perform the duties of an office or employment of profit or the want of integrity in the discharge of his duties of such office or employment; (4) defamatory words falsely spoken of a party which prejudice such party in his or her profession or trade."
The damages may be either nominal, one dollar is often given in such cases, or compensatory, larger damages, as a punishment. The amount rendered is within the province of the jury, but courts do not hesitate to modify or set aside verdicts which are deemed excessive or too meager.
The defenses in such actions may be briefly described. The truth of the charge is a complete defense to a civil action for slander or libel, because "the law will not permit a man to recover damages in respect to an injury to a character which he either does not or ought not to possess." A privileged communication is another defense. The heads of the executive departments of government are absolutely privileged for defamatory statements made by them while acting within the limits of their authority. Their motives do not become the subject of inquiry in a civil suit for damages. Judicial officers are shielded by this rule while discharging their duties. The publication of judicial proceedings is conditionally privileged. The condition is that the proceedings are public, are decent and fit for publication, that the reports are full and fair, and that their publication is not inspired by malice. Says Burdick: "The reports of such proceedings are usually made without reference to the individuals concerned, and for the information and benefit of the public. The law, therefore, presumes that they are made in good faith." The full and fair reports of parliamentary and legislative proceedings are also conditionally privileged as well as the reports of judicial proceedings, and for the same reasons. The publication of the proceedings of quasi public bodies, like state, medical, and ecclesiastical societies has been deemed conditionally privileged. But "professional publishers of news are not exempt, or a privileged class, from the consequences of damage done by false news. Their communications are not privileged merely because made in public journals." Statements rendered by mercantile or collection agencies to inquirers for business purposes are clearly privileged. But whether the circulation among all their subscribers of a sheet containing such statements is privileged is a disputed question among the courts. Again, every statement made with the object of protecting some interest of the writer or speaker and which is reasonably necessary for such purpose is conditionally privileged. Fair comment is another defense. The most frequent subjects of fair comment from which spring actions for defamations are the character and conduct of public men or candidates for office; and literary, artistic, or commercial productions offered to the public. Whether a particular statement is an unfair aspersion of one's personal character, or a fair comment on his public conduct, is a question usually for the jury.