Negligent Injury to Reputation: Defamation Priority and the Economic Loss Rule

This Note considers cases in which plaintiffs seek reputational damages without pleading defamation. This Note focuses on instances of “stand-alone” reputational injury, where plaintiffs suffer no physical injury to their person or property. This Note uncovers various rationales for this “priority of defamation”—rationales that are generally under-articulated by the courts themselves. The Note also examines applications of the economic loss rule to claims for negligent injury to reputation and suggests that courts sometimes implicitly endorse the economic loss rule in these cases by rejecting claims with a broad version of defamation priority.