Retraction Law in Florida Note: This page covers information specific to Florida and should be read in conjunction with the general section on retraction in the section on Correcting or Retracting Your Work After Publication which has additional information applicable to all states. Florida has a retraction statute, Fla. Stat. § 770.02, that applies to a newspaper or periodical's "publication" of a libel, or a "broadcast" of a slander. Although the statute does not specifically state whether it covers online publications, the Florida Supreme Court's decision in Ross v. Gore, 48 So.2d 412 (Fla. 1950) suggests that an online publisher may be covered by the statute if the publisher's main focus is the dissemination of news. In Ross, the plaintiff Julian Ross brought suit against publisher R.H. Gore for an allegedly defamatory editorial published in Gore's newspaper, the Fort Lauderdale Daily News. Ross argued that the state's retraction statute violated Florida's constitution because it prevented him from collecting punitive damages. The court disagreed and noted that the retraction statute encouraged the free dissemination of "news" and "fair comment" in a short timeframe by not placing unreasonable restraints on the working news reporter or editor, thus preserving an important component of American democracy. In a later case, an appellate court concluded that the retraction statute applied to anyone writing for a newspaper, and based its reasoning on the need to protect the swift dissemination of news in order to inform the public of "pending matters while there is still time for public opinion to form and be felt." Mancini v. Personalized Air Conditioning & Heating, Inc., 702 So.2d 1376 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1997). Both the Ross and Mancini decisions suggest that future courts may be willing to apply Florida's retraction law to an online publication as long as the publication is dedicated to the rapid dissemination of news. Handling Requests to R