come behind the curtain and follow private investigator Sheila Waisaki for season 6,

defamation or truth, in the matter of Christian and Ryakyo.

I have Mike Simmons, my attorney from the defamation lawsuit with me and Mike, please introduce yourself, tell everyone what you do.

I'm Mike Simmons, I'm a partner with the law firm of Cosmic Simmons and Brown where we're in Jackson, Mississippi.

I'm a lawist across the country and I practice primarily in the state of Mississippi both in state and federal court.

Defend lawsuit such as the one that you and your podcasts found themselves in and been doing it for 28 years.

What happened to you for a defamation lawsuit? Was this an unusual lawsuit?

It was unusual in Sephora as the subject matter that gave rise to the claims was matter of great public interest, not just in Mississippi, but nationwide.

That being the death of Christian and Ryakyo. So because the claims arose from your podcast without warning on Christian's death, it was somewhat unusual.

Was this a first amendment issue?

Well, the first amendment has a number of provisions being that would affect you and without warning, that being the free speech clause and freedom of press or free press calls both were implicated by this.

So can you define defamation?

It varies from state to state, but more or less, Mississippi follows kind of the common definition of defamation.

Use throughout the country. There are four elements. The first is a false or the Famitory statement about a plaintiff.

The second is an unprivileged communication of the statement to a third party. The third element is fought on the part of the defendant, amounting at least to negligence.

The fourth element is either special damages or presumed damages. So special damages are another term for economic damages. So for example, if a defamatory statement causes a plaintiff to lose income or the ability to get a job, that would be a spot of these considered special damages.

So, if a presumed damages are damages that the law presumes to be suffered by person in certain categories of defamation.

The first, you know, for example, defamation, the Famitory words that Andrew's authority in their business trainer profession.

The plaintiff's, the plaintiff proves that then the law presumes that the plaintiff has been damaged.

And that would, it had the case not been dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.

That would have been an issue we would have presented to the court and a motion for summary judgment or a motion to dismiss Mr. Miller's plans against you and without warning.

But we never, we never got to that stage because the case was dismissed.

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