Section 4 General Damages

• Library: Damages 2012

Before Nazeri v. Missouri Valley College, 860 S.W.2d 303, 313 (Mo. banc 1993), general damages were presumed in libel per se cases while special damages had to be pleaded and proved in libel per quod cases. Id. at 307–13. This is no longer the law in Missouri, and no damages, not even general damages, are presumed. Id. at 313. Rather, a plaintiff must establish that the defendant’s conduct caused the plaintiff to incur actual damages, and these damages may not be based on pure speculation. Bauer v. Ribaudo, 975 S.W.2d 180, 182–83 (Mo. App. E.D. 1997). Because of this significant change in the law, pre-Nazeri opinions discussing general damages may no longer be good law and should be relied on with caution.

Under the current standard, plaintiffs may not recover actual damages unless they can establish that their reputation has, in fact, been injured and they “directly link” this injury to the specific publication in issue. See McQuoid v. Springfield Newspapers, Inc., 502 F. Supp. 1050, 1059–60 (W.D. Mo. 1980) (the plaintiff failed to provide competent evidence of actual damages); see also Warren v. Pulitzer Pub. Co., 78 S.W.2d 404, 419 (Mo. 1934) (the plaintiff’s evidence was insufficient to establish that a change in people’s attitude toward the plaintiff was caused by the defendant’s article).

For example, in McQuoid, the court entered judgment in favor of the defendant and against the plaintiff based on, among other things, the plaintiff’s failure to establish any actual injury resulting from the article in question. McQuoid, 502 F. Supp. at 1059–60. The court noted that the plaintiff’s witnesses testified that the article in question did not lessen their opinion of the plaintiff. Id. Further, although the plaintiff testified that he felt his reputation had been damaged, he could not say whether it was the article in question that the individuals had read or a different article from a different newspaper that caused the damage. Id. As a result, the court...