Defamation

Defamation allows you to recover damages if someone makes a false statement about you that injures your reputation, subjects you to public hatred, ridicule, or causes you to be shunned and avoided.

There are two principal types of defamation: (1) libel: defamation in writing, and (2) slander: defamation by spoken statements.

To bring a claim for defamation under South Carolina law, you must show (1) a false and defamatory statement was made; (2) the unprivileged publication was made to a third party; (3) the publisher was at fault; and (4) either actionability of the statement irrespective of special harm or the existence of special harm caused by the publication.

Defamation is actionable per se, meaning you do not have to prove you were damaged when the false and defamatory statements involve (1) the commission of a crime of moral turpitude; (2) contraction of a loathsome disease; (3) adultery; (4) unchastity; or (5) unfitness in one’s business or profession.

Employers have substantial protections when discussing employees and generally cannot be held liable for defamatory statements made in the course of internal investigations or employee discipline. Employers are protected from false and defamatory statements if the statements are made in good faith and with an honest belief.

However, these protections are not absolute. An employer must not exceed the scope of the occasion, engage in any unnecessary defamation, or act with actual malice.  The employer’s statement must be limited in its scope, on a proper occasion, and published in a proper manner and to the proper parties only.

An employer can be liable if they act with malice or make statements with reckless disregard for the truth.  For example, the  South Carolina Court of Appeals held in Kennedy v. Richland Cty. Sch. Dist. Two, that the employer’s email to other employees that the plaintiff, who was a security guard, might be responsible for recent thefts and was no longer to be trusted with keys, insinuated that the plaintiff was a thief and was not to be trusted, was actionable.