It seems pretty fucked up that if I’m being defamed, I can’t do anything about it if the person defaming me is mentally ill. Do I just have to sit there and watch my reputation go down the shitter, with potential loss of jobs, income, etc.? That doesn’t seem like a workable system to me.
In the US, you're not being defamed until someone relates a damaging false fact. This particular defendant has, apparently, only said that the Tarot deck told her the plaintiff was a murderer. That's not a fact. It's like saying "in my opinion, you're a murderer". You're allowed to do that.
It may well be a fact. But it's a fact about the Tarot cards, not the professor. I don't think the case would be materially different if the cards required less interpretation, e.g. if she had instead consulted a Magic 8-ball which told her the professor was the murderer "without a doubt".
Yes! But if you could show she consulted the Magic 8-ball and it said "Better not tell you now" and she lied and said "It is decidedly so", you might could actually sue for defamation, which is wild.
In the legal sense, it's not clear that you are being defamed just because a crazy person believes crazy things for crazy reasons. The article goes into how (and why) the standard is (usually) higher than that.
It's not clear what should happen differently. The court can't enforce the private mental states of random citizens; there could be millions of cranks right now who believe that you're a murderer and are talking about you behind your back. Unless their beliefs come from factual claims that they know are false, it's not clear what recourse the courts should offer you.
This person seem have hundreds of followers on social media sites, which is hardlya big audience, and the claims are so obviously batshit insane that I don't think there will be much risk for loss of jobs, income, etc.
