§ 14-12 Defamation - Common Law Actual Malice - Defined

• Library: South Carolina Requests to Charge - Civil (SCBar) (2016 Ed.)

§ 14-12 Defamation - Common Law Actual Malice - Defined

Common law actual malice means the defendant acted with ill will toward the plaintiff or acted recklessly or wantonly, meaning with conscious indifference toward the plaintiff's rights. In other words, actual malice means the defendant was actuated by ill will in what he did, with the design to causelessly and wantonly injure the plaintiff, or that the statements were published with such recklessness as to show a conscious indifference toward the plaintiff's rights.

See Holtzscheiter v. Thomson Newspapers, Inc., 332

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