Chapter 7 draws together the arguments presented in the preceding chapters, to underline the way that traditions around bringing disputes to court interacted with a written bill of rights to make courts the fora for disputes over expression in Massachusetts, as it dealt with the challenges to authority posed by challengers to religious and social orthodoxy and the gradual unfolding of its own version of democracy. Though no less concerned with individual reputation, Nova Scotians’ struggles over the jurisdiction of political institutions and greater distance from reform movements shaped disputes over expression and the way that defenses to libel claims were conceived. In these two kindred places, legal cultures, constitutional understandings, publishing practices and the quirks of personality interacted with sociopolitical pressures to shape libel law in general and the defenses of truth and privilege in particular, matters vital to individuals and to the institutions of democracy.

Chapter 6 examines civil disputes, most of them unreported, in which individuals – white and generally of middling status – took each other to court over reputational claims. These cases demonstrate the centrality of courts as fora for disputes in Massachusetts, specifically in the Boston and Worcester areas, whereas Nova Scotia saw substantial regional variation, associated with religion, language, indigeneity and lawyer availability, from Pictou to Yarmouth to Halifax. Nova Scotia had far fewer defamation cases both absolutely and relative to population. Massachusetts courts more frequently awarded windfalls, and the costs to a plaintiff of bringing a suit and then dropping it were higher in Nova Scotia. As well, in Massachusetts the writ of attachment was undoubtedly attractive to plaintiffs who wanted to make life difficult for a defendant before trial. This writ was not available for such purposes in Nova Scotia. Women in Massachusetts, far more than in Nova Scotia, turned to courts for redress, and courts were receptive to their claims, especially to those of self-supporting single women.

Defamation can have a long-term effect – a ‘propensity to percolate through underground channels and contaminate hidden springs’ of C’s reputation (per Slipper v BBC1). It is a technically difficult tort, in which the defences available to D assume equal, if not greater, prominence in the judgments as do the elements of the cause of action itself. As a common law tort, it is an ‘ancient construct’ (per Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd2). The Defamation Act 2013, which took effect on 1 January 2014, overruled aspects of the common law, but preserved other aspects, adding to the complexity of the tort. Wherever the publication complained of began in 2013 and continues into 2014, the court is now likely to have to consider the position both at common law and under statute (per Donovan v Gibbons3).