In Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., the Supreme Court rejected the argument that it should extend the New York Times test to defamation suits by private-figure plaintiffs against media defendants. 418 U.S. 323, 345, 94 S. Ct. 2997, 3010-11 (1974). Instead, the Court held that, “so long as they do not impose liability without fault, the States may define for themselves the appropriate standard of liability for a publisher or broadcaster of defamatory falsehood injurious to a private individual.” Id. at 347, 94 S. Ct. at 3010. In reaching this conclusion, the Court explained “that [because] private individuals will lack effective opportunities for rebuttal, there is a compelling normative consideration underlying the distinction between public and private defamation plaintiffs.” Id. at 344, 94 S. Ct. at 3009. In response to Gertz, the Minnesota Supreme Court adopted a negligence standard for the mental state in civil cases of defamation involving private individuals in the civil context. Jadwin v. Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co., 367 N.W.2d 476, 491 (Minn. 1985). Private individuals asserting defamation claims in Minnesota “may recover actual damages for a defamatory publication upon proof that the defendant knew or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known that the defamatory statement was false.” Id. To establish a defamation claim in Minnesota, a plaintiff must prove that the defamatory statement is communicated to someone other than the plaintiff; that the statement is false; that the statement tends to harm the plaintiff’s reputation and to lower the plaintiff in the estimation of the community, and that the recipient of the false statement reasonably understands it to refer to a specific individual. 7