> If, for example, the person was a stakeholder in a competitive company and documented that they were trying to hurt the company, then it obviously wouldn’t be

> If, for example, the person was a stakeholder in a competitive company and documented that they were trying to hurt the company, then it obviously wouldn’t be an honest opinion. You've offered an example of evidence against it being an "honestly-held opinion". You're still thinking of it as being the responsibility of the plaintiff to prove that the opinion was not honestly-held. That's not the problem here! The plaintiff doesn't need any smoking gun like that. The defendant has to show that it was honestly-held. It doesn't sound like the plaintiff needs any evidence one way or another; if the defendant can't come up with affirmative evidence that it was honestly-held, they're liable. It sounds like an awful system.