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vested property rights. Underhill Fancy Veal, Inc. v. Padot, 677
So. 2d 1378, 1380 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1996).
Petitioners further assert that petitioner's dignitary, or
personal, right to be free from fraud and lies is the injury at
issue, likening the damages award to an award for libel or
slander, in ostensible reliance on Threlkeld v. Commissioner, 87
T.C. at 1308. In that case, this Court held that compensatory
damages received in settlement of the taxpayer’s claim for
injuries to his professional reputation arising out of a claim
for malicious prosecution were excludable from income under
section 104(a)(2). This Court determined that an action for
malicious prosecution was similar to an action for defamation and
under Tennessee law would be classified as an action for personal
injuries. Adopting a definition of personal injury from the
Tennessee Supreme Court, this Court stated: “Exclusion under
section 104 will be appropriate if compensatory damages are
received on account of any invasion of the rights that an
individual is granted by virtue of being a person in the sight of
the law.” Id. at 1308 (paraphrasing Brown v. Dunstan, 409 S.W.2d
365, 367 (Tenn. 1966)).6
6 That this definition differentiates between a personal
injury and an economic injury is made plain by the more complete
discussion in the paraphrased source, which defines personal
injuries as “injuries resulting from invasions of rights that
inhere in man as a rational being, that is, rights to which one
is entitled by reason of being a person in the eyes of the law.
Such rights, of course, are to be distinguished from those which
accrue to an individual by reason of some peculiar status or by
virtue of an interest created by contract or property.” Brown v.
Dunstad, 409 S.W.2d 365, 367 (Tenn. 1966). (Emphasis added.)
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