Virginia state courts have made it abundantly clear: if you’re going to sue someone for defamation, you’d better know exactly what they said—and be able to plead those words with precision at the outset of the case, without the benefit of the discovery process. In Bennett v. Lundh, a June 2025 opinion from the Court of Appeals of Virginia, the court reinforced this long-standing doctrine in emphatic terms. The opinion doesn’t just affirm the dismissal of a defamation claim with prejudice—it offers a primer on why the “in haec verba” (i.e., verbatim) pleading standard exists, how it works, and what happens when a plaintiff ignores it.
The basic facts of the case go like this: Ian Wesley Bennett and Katerina Lundh were coworkers working under a federal government contract. In August 2022, the two attended a business trip to San Francisco. According to the complaint, an incident occurred after dinner one evening in which Lundh—allegedly intoxicated—bumped into Bennett. He claims to have playfully nudged her, after which she slapped him across the face. Later, he made a comment about her personal history, prompting a second slap. Hours later, at a bar with colleagues, a coworker confronted Bennett, accusing him of grabbing Lundh and threatening to report him. That same accusation was apparently referenced in subsequent disciplinary action and ultimately contributed to Bennett’s removal from the government contract.
Bennett suspected that Lundh had spread false rumors about him—though he couldn’t point to any particular statement or publication. His lawsuit, filed in Fairfax County Circuit Court, alleged defamation but failed to include the specific words Lundh allegedly used. He alleged, “[u]pon information and belief, Lundh published false and defamatory statements of and concerning Bennett” but he did not describe those statements with any specificity. The trial court
The court identified several reasons for the rule. First and foremost, it enables courts to determine at the pleadings stage whether the words are legally actionable. Trial courts wouldn’t be able to dispose of invalid claims on demurrer if they don’t know what words are claimed to be defamatory. Whether a particular statement is potentially actionable is a question of law for the court (not the jury) to decide, and the exact words of the statement in question are necessary for the trial court to make that determination. The court pointed out that several important legal determinations—whether a statement is capable of a defamatory meaning, whether it’s opinion or fact, and whether actual malice has been alleged (for public figures)—are often resolved at the demurrer stage. That’s only possible if the court is given the actual words to evaluate.
Second, requiring plaintiffs to plead the exact words at issue puts defendants on clear notice of what they’re being accused of saying. Defendants need to have fair notice of the claim so they can adquately prepare a defense.
Some courts have offered as a third justification that the rule is necessary to prevent repeated litigation over the same statement. Judgments may not have a preclusive effect if the exact words of the statement are not known. (The Court of Appeals cited an old English case from 1814 as an example, so I suppose this isn’t a rationale used very often).
A common tactic in federal court is to file a defamation case “upon information and belief” while hoping to substantiate the claim through the discovery process. This doesn’t work in state court. It’s not enough to plead the “gist” of the statement and hope to discover the exact words at a later time. Plaintiffs must demonstrate a viable claim before any entitlement to discovery arises.
Although the exact words of the statement should be included in the original complaint, Virginia courts may allow a plaintiff to clarify or supplement a vague defamation complaint by ordering a bill of particulars. A bill of particulars that properly identifies the verbatim statement will suffice to survive a demurrer if the statement is deemed actionable. In this case, the trial court gave Bennett an opportunity to do that (i.e., identify the particulars of the statement claimed to be defamatory) but he failed to file a bill of particulars.
For these reasons, the Court of Appeals held that the trial court was well within its discretion to dismiss the case with prejudice.