Slander Laws in South Carolina: Defenses, Damages & Insurance

Slander laws in South Carolina cover false spoken statements that damage someone’s reputation, and the state treats those statements as both a civil wrong you can sue over and a misdemeanor crime. A civil plaintiff must prove the statement was false, spoken to someone other than the person it was about, made with at least negligence, and caused real harm. On the criminal side, maliciously spreading a false statement about another person’s character can carry a fine of up to $5,000, up to a year in jail, or both.¹

What Slander Is

Slander is defamation spoken out loud. The same false statement written down, printed, or posted online is libel instead. That distinction matters in practice: spoken words vanish the moment they’re said, so slander cases usually rise or fall on witnesses.

A civil slander claim in South Carolina has four elements:

A false and defamatory statement about the plaintiff.
Publication to a third party. Someone other than the plaintiff has to have heard it. Insults delivered to the person alone don’t qualify.
Fault. The speaker was at least negligent about whether the statement was true. Public figures have to show more, which is covered below.
Damages. The plaintiff has to show actual harm, unless the statement falls into one of the per se categories where harm is presumed.

Truth is a complete defense. If the statement is substantially accurate, it is not slander no matter how badly it hurt the plaintiff’s standing.²

When Damages Are Presumed: Slander Per Se

Some spoken accusations are treated as so obviously damaging that South Carolina presumes harm without any proof of a specific dollar loss. The South Carolina Supreme Court recognizes five per se categories:²

Falsely accusing someone of a crime of moral turpitude, such as theft or fraud.
Falsely claiming someone has a loathsome, communicable, or socially stigmatized disease.
Falsely accusing a married person of adultery.
Falsely accusing someone of unchastity or sexual impropriety.
Falsely attacking someone’s fitness or competence in their trade or profession.

If the statement fits one of these, the plaintiff can recover without documenting a specific financial loss. For anything outside the five categories, the plaintiff has to prove special damages, meaning concrete, measurable harm like lost wages or a lost business deal.

Slander as a Crime

South Carolina is one of the few states that still makes slander a criminal offense. Under state law, anyone who maliciously makes or spreads a false statement tending to injure another person’s character or reputation commits a misdemeanor. Penalties reach $5,000, one year in jail, or both.¹

Malice, meaning intentional wrongdoing, is a higher bar than the negligence standard in a civil case. The statute preserves the victim’s right to file a separate civil suit for damages, so criminal prosecution and a civil lawsuit can run in parallel.

Filing a Civil Slander Case

Civil slander claims are filed in state court. The court depends on the money at stake. Magistrate courts hear civil claims up to $7,500.³ Anything larger goes to the Court of Common Pleas.⁴

The complaint has to identify the defamatory statement, explain when and where it was made, and name who heard it. South Carolina’s pleading rules do not require a plaintiff to plead extrinsic facts explaining how the statement applies to them; a general allegation that the remark was made about the plaintiff is enough.⁵ Vague complaints still get dismissed as a practical matter, so pinning down the specific words, the date, the location, and the witnesses is worth doing early.

The statute of limitations is two years from the date the statement was made. Missing that deadline almost always ends the case.⁶

How Much Fault You Have To Prove

The fault standard depends on who the plaintiff is. Under New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, public officials and public figures have to prove actual malice by clear and convincing evidence, meaning the speaker either knew the statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for whether it was true.⁷

Private plaintiffs face a lower bar. South Carolina generally requires them to show the defendant was at least negligent about the truth. And when a per se statement is made by a non-media defendant about private matters, the plaintiff gets the benefit of presumptions: the statement is presumed false, the speaker is presumed at fault, and damages are presumed. That effectively shifts the work onto the defendant to prove truth or absence of fault.

Defenses

Truth

If the statement is substantially true, the case ends. The defendant carries the burden of proving accuracy, usually through documents, recordings, or witnesses. Courts don’t demand word-for-word precision; the gist has to be right.²

Opinion

Defamation law only reaches false statements of fact. A genuine opinion cannot be proven true or false and is protected by the First Amendment. Prefacing an accusation with “I think” doesn’t convert it into protected opinion. Courts look at whether a reasonable listener would treat the remark as asserting a verifiable fact. Context counts. An offhand jab in a fight reads differently than a detailed accusation delivered at work.

Privilege

Some settings let people speak without slander exposure. South Carolina recognizes two levels.

Absolute privilege gives complete protection and applies in narrow situations: testimony in judicial proceedings, statements in legislative debate, and official government communications. A witness who testifies in court cannot be sued for slander over that testimony, even if it turns out to be false.

Qualified privilege covers statements made in good faith where the speaker and listener share a legitimate interest in the information. Employment references are the classic example. South Carolina law grants employers immunity when disclosing dates of employment, pay levels, performance evaluations, and reasons for separation to a prospective employer, as long as the employer does not knowingly or recklessly share false information. A plaintiff can defeat qualified privilege by showing malice or reckless disregard for the truth.

No Anti-SLAPP Statute

Many states have anti-SLAPP laws that let defendants quickly dismiss defamation suits aimed at silencing speech on public issues, often shifting attorney’s fees to the plaintiff. South Carolina has not enacted one. Defendants here cannot file a special motion to strike under such a law and may have to defend even a weak slander claim through the full litigation process.

Damages

Actual damages compensate for measurable losses the plaintiff can document: lost wages, lost business, medical bills tied to emotional distress, and similar out-of-pocket costs. Courts want tangible proof, such as financial records, employment documentation, or expert testimony.

Presumed damages come into play in per se cases. The plaintiff does not have to attach a dollar figure. Juries can award based on the nature of the accusation alone.²

Punitive damages punish egregious behavior and are available when the defendant acted with actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth. South Carolina caps them in most cases. The default limit is the greater of three times the compensatory damages or $500,000. A higher cap of four times compensatory damages or $2 million applies when the conduct was motivated by unreasonable financial gain or could result in a felony conviction. The cap is removed in three narrow situations: when the defendant intended to cause harm and did, when the defendant has been convicted of a felony arising from the same conduct, or when the defendant was substantially impaired by alcohol or drugs at the time.⁸

Taxes on a Slander Recovery

Slander recoveries usually turn on emotional distress and reputational harm rather than physical injury. The IRS treats settlement proceeds for emotional distress not stemming from a physical injury as taxable income, reduced by any related medical expenses not previously deducted.⁹

Punitive damages are always taxable, regardless of the underlying claim, and must be reported as other income on your federal return.⁹

Insurance and Slander

Standard homeowners policies do not cover slander. Coverage is available through an optional personal injury endorsement that can be added to a homeowners policy and typically covers slander, libel, false arrest, and related claims. Most umbrella liability policies include the same protection. These policies generally exclude conduct where the insured knew the information was false or knew it would violate someone’s rights, so the coverage is designed for honest mistakes rather than deliberate attacks. If exposure is a concern, checking whether your existing homeowners or umbrella policy includes personal injury coverage is the place to start.

1
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 16-7-150 – Slander and Libel
2
Supreme Court of South Carolina. Holtzscheiter v. Thomson Newspapers, Inc.
3
South Carolina Judicial Branch. About the SC Magistrate Court
4
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code Title 22 – Jurisdiction and Procedure in Magistrates Courts
5
South Carolina Judicial Branch. South Carolina Court Rules – Rule 9 – Pleading Special Matters
6
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 15-3-550 – Two Years
7
Justia. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964)
8
South Carolina Legislature. South Carolina Code 15-32-530 – Awards Not to Exceed Certain Limits
9
Internal Revenue Service. Settlements – Taxability (Publication 4345)