Emma Husar: BuzzFeed drops truth defence over ‘slut’ claims

Federal Court judge Steven Rares, who is presiding over the defamation case, said late last month BuzzFeed’s original defence ‘doesn’t get anywhere near proving the substantial truth’ of the ‘slut’ claims. He ordered BuzzFeed to file a revised defence within two weeks. On a previous occasion, Justice Rares said the ‘fairly salacious’ article ‘seems eminently capable’ of conveying to readers the ‘slut’ imputations and declined an application by BuzzFeed’s lawyers to strike them out of the statement of claim before the trial.

Source: SMH, March 11

There is no legal definition of slut. The presiding judge in the Husar case, Steven Rares, said: ‘It sounds like very casual sexual partnerships going on to me’.

Source: SMH, March 11

According to Google:

slut
/slʌt/
noun
1. DEROGATORY
a woman who has many casual sexual partners.
synonyms: promiscuous woman; …more

According to the Oxford Dictionaries:

slut
NOUN
derogatory
1. A woman who has many casual sexual partners.
Synonyms: promiscuous woman

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