Thomas McCabe v. Daniel Rattiner

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge.

This case takes us to the juncture between the law of defamation and the first amendment, where courts have developed the doctrine of constitutionally protected opinion. See, e.g., Ollman v. Evans, 750 F.2d 970 (D.C.Cir.1984) (en banc), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1127, 105 S.Ct. 2662, 86 L.Ed.2d 278 (1985); Information Control Corp. v. Genesis One Computer Corp., 611 F.2d 781 (9th Cir.1980); Buckley v. Littell, 539 F.2d 882 (2d Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1062, 97 S.Ct. 786, 50 L.Ed.2d 777 (1977). Although we have considered this doctrine previously, we have never…