Defamation is a type of personal injury claim unlike most personal injury claims. Most personal injury claims result from auto accidents, slips and fall, dog bites, and all other accidents where physical injuries have been sustained. But defamation is different. Defamation is concerned with harm to one’s reputation. Defamation is comprised of two branches: slander and libel.

Slander is defamation that is spoken or uttered. It comes about when someone says something about someone else that harms the standing or reputation of that person in his community. Libel is defamation that is written. As with slander, it occurs when a person’s standing and reputation in the community has been adversely affected. These cases are tough because you have to show damages which are often hard to quantify when dealing with harm to reputation. Nevertheless, these types of cases are quite common and I encourage you to contact a local Massachusetts personal injury lawyer if you think you have been defamed.