Joan is intent on getting the City of Westview to build more bike lanes. She has written many letters to the local paper, been a
guest on local radio talk shows, appeared numerous times before the city council, and even paid for a billboard urging her cause. One day a local radio station talk show host says that two years ago Joan ran her car into a bicyclist who was riding in a bike lane. Joan says the story is false and sues the station (and the show host) for libel. What level of fault will Joan have to prove, and why?
actual malice, because Joan is a limited-purpose public figure as she voluntarily thrust herself into a public controversy
Explanation:
In law, actual malice is simply a requirement that is imposed on a particular person who claims her image is being tarnished by someone when filing a lawsuit for slander or libel. This will be found in a case where the defendant actually publishes a false statement (libel) or communicates it (slander), knowing fully well that the information is false and disregard for what such information can cause. Joan is actually a limited-purpose figure and decided to go public by making efforts to get her voice out there in a quest to build more bike lanes.
Act One -- and the entirety of the play -- is set in Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was settled by Governor John Winthrop and around seven hundred Puritans in 1639.
