Can my MIL or I be sued for slander?

[Lissajayne05]

What is the name of your state? KY

I am a member of cheapcycle.org, a group where you can buy and sell items to people in your area. Just this past week my husband and I bought an air conditonar and it worked ok, till we got it home. Long story short, it quit only after about an hour of use. I emailed the lady we bought it from and she said she was sorry. We asked for our money back ($50) and she said that she already spent the money. We didn't like it, but just kind of sucked it up and went on. My Mil, who is also a member of the group, though we were treated unfairly, and wrote the group itself and told the members not to buy from this lady because if they did and she sold something that was broken, they more than likely wouldn't get their money back. It bothered my mil because she said that ppl shouldn't be like that and she knows that our kids are suffering for it. The lady of course saw the post and is now mad at me and my mil, and is saying that she is going to sue her and the cheapcycle.org site for slander. Can she do this? Does she really have anything against either of us? I just want to know if I should worry for myself or my mil or not worry at all.

Thanks for the advice,
Melissa

 

[magic55]

People can sue for anything. But here she would clearly lose. She has absolutely no case at all if what you said is true. Best of luck


Caveat Emptor-let the buyer beware.

-Magic

 

[Ohiogal]

Actually magic an opinion cannot be true or false. It is just opinion. If she stated a fact, then truth is a defense. What the MIL stated was not a fact based on the OP but opinion which is protected by the First Amendment. Again OP can be sued. Cheapcycle.org can't be liable if they allow anyone to post and do not censor all posts. But they also can be sued.

 

[magic55]

Ohiogal, when I said "if what you said was true" I mean it in regards to everything she said in her post being true (not really a direct reference to what they wrote about the woman being true but her entire post). My grammatical fault, sorry for the confusion.

 

[Menthol]

Well I can promise you that you will not get sued for slander, slander is verbal defamation, libel is written. If you were sued for libel you have an airtight defence, which is that what you posted was in fact true. You bought an air conditioner from her and it broke and you couldnt get your money back. As libel cases go that is the absolute best defence. Libel is only libel if it is untrue and you know it to be untrue.