A hearing was held on Tuesday by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to decide whether to reinstate former NFL player Brett Favre’s libel complaint against sports talk show host Shannon Sharpe.
Last October, U. S. District Judge Keith Starrett tossed Favre’s petition on grounds that little Sharpe said amounted to slander, which concerns untrue and reputation-damaging statements that are scientific feeling more than mind. Starrett emphasized the First Amendment protects “rhetorical exaggeration” and “loose, symbolic language” relating to matters of public concern.
Favre objected to Sharpe, a fellow retired NFL player, telling audiences of Skip and Shannon: Undisputed that” Brett Favre is taking from the underserved”,” ]Favre ] stole money from people that really needed that money” and,” The problem that I have with this condition, you’ve got to be a sorry mofo to steal from the lowest of the low”.

Sharpe’s criticism of Favre was reflected in the media’s policy of Favre’s involvement in a well-known scandal involving the use of welfare funds in Mississippi. In 2022, the Mississippi Department of Human Services sued Favre and 37 people for unlawful payments, crime and associated charges. Favre, who has not been charged with a violence and who denies breaking any laws, is accused of conspiring to use security money to pay for the construction of a tennis facility at his home university, the University of Southern Mississippi.
In his brief to the Fifth Circuit, Favre ( through his attorneys ) insists that a reasonable listener could have understood Sharpe saying Favre” stole money” was a factual—not opinion — assertion. For that reason, Favre maintains the speech is “actionable libel” rather than “rhetorical exaggeration”.
To boost that place, Favre stresses Sharpe uttered the speech during what Favre phrases” a major sector” of Sharpe’s present with Skip Bayless. Additionally, Favre contends that Sharpe’s claim should be treated as factual because he allegedly made it seem like he was” stating facts” rather than a vibrant and apparently exaggerative sponsor.
Sharpe sees the situation separately. Through his counsel, Sharpe’s short to the Fifth Circuit maintains his thoughts were” openly hyperbolic and figurative” instead than charges of actual offences. The small describes how courts have held non-literal functions of” steal”, “take” and “blackmail” are non-defamatory in public discourse when describing questionable do instead of unlawful acts.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the speech was not defamatory even when TV network Geraldo Rivera called people an “accomplice to death.” Rivera, the court reasoned, was engaged in rhetorical hyperbole that expressed his “belief that]plaintiff ] shared in the moral culpability for]an individual’s ] death”. The complainant was certainly held guilty of a criminal by Rivera. To that point, the small underscores how Sharpe “is not an attorney, counsel, or legal scientist” but rather a” beautiful sports personality”.

Leslie Southwick, Kyle Duncan, and Jeremy Kernodle make up the Fifth Circuit section for Favre v. Sharpe ( as a disclosure, I was a partner of Southwick in the middle of 2000s when we both taught at Mississippi College School of Law ). In the months to come, the panels will rule.
The case of Favre v. Sharpe has important implications for gymnastics talk show hosts who make legitimate observations. The more scientific their commentary sounds, the more likely it is that it will be labeled as disparaging as long as it is misleading and harmful to the subject’s reputation. Public figures face the additional challenge of establishing “actual malice” in defamation cases, which means the speech at issue was made with knowledge of its falsehood or with reckless disrespect for whether it was true or false.