Injury to Reputation and the Constitution: Confusion Amid Conflicting Approaches

It is the thesis of this article that the long-run implications of Firestone and Paul v. Davis will force a radical reformulation of the circumstances under which an individual may obtain legal redress for injury to his reputation brought about by falsehoods. The Court will eventually be obliged to abandon its fragmented treatment of the subject: At present, some injured persons have no chance of recovery; others are faced with requirements of proof that make recovery very difficult; still others can recover under significantly more relaxed standards of proof. The nature of the Court's likely reformulation will be developed later in this article, after an examination of the unsatisfactory current state of the law.