recommend that “these archaic common law rules [presumed damages and special damages] should be replaced by a single uniform rule that a plaintiff must prove actual damage to reputation, either pecuniary or non-pecuniary, to establish any cause of action for defamation.” Id. at 154, 692 A.2d 103. We concluded that until the Supreme Court formally abrogates slander per se (as some other states had), the “lower courts should invoke the slander per se doctrine only in cases where it clearly applies.” Id. at 155-56, 692 A.2d 103. Thus we declined to expand the categories of slander per se to include the statements in that case, which did not specifically accuse the plaintiff of past criminal conduct. Id. at 156-57, 692 A.2d 103. See also Rocci, supra, 323 N.J.Super. at 24-25, 731 A.2d 1205 (<HOLDING>). From the foregoing cases we distill a shift
holding that the governments position must have a reasonable basis in both law and fact citations omitted holding that for the administrative position of the government to be substantially justified it must have a reasonable basis both in law and fact holding that likelihood of irreparable harm must be based on evidence in the record not unsupported and conclusory statements regarding harm the plaintiff might suffer holding that there is no distinction having any first amendment significance between criminal libel and civil libel or criminal fraud and civil fraud for libelous or fraudulent speech both have no first amendment protection in either the civil or criminal context holding that a defamation plaintiff in both libel and slander cases must always proffer proof of harm in fact