The Question and Answer Board

[cOUSIN SHORTY]

It depends. If the person has a habit of posting material of a potentially libelous nature, and puts "IMHO" or "JMHO" at the bottom, it is debatable, since it could be argued that "IMHO" is not a part of the language that the majority of people use every day. Further, if you could show that said person put "IMHO" at the end of EVERY message, no matter what he or she said, then you might be able to argue that the intent of that person was simply to try and avoid legal problems that they knew would crop up in the future.

It also has to do with the nature of the person or entity being spoken about. I beleive a public figure is less likely to win a libel suit than someone nobody ever heard of, simply because the public figure is well known to lots of people. Then there is the area of satire. Jay Leno does not get sued when he tells a "joke" about someone that one of his viewers believes is fact.

It's a gray area in many cases. I think it would come down to the person's INTENT. If the INTENT was to defraud, or for personal gain at the victim's expense, then putting "IMHO" at the end of it would be weak. But the law gives people a lot of leeway regarding libel.

This, by the way, is just me rambling, and I am not an attorney, so this is just...uh...my own...personal...