Actual malice in

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

is a legal requirement imposed upon

public official An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their s ...

s or

public figure A public figure is a person who has achieved notoriety, prominence or fame within a society, whether through achievement, luck, action, or in some cases through no purposeful action of their own, In the context of defamation actions (libel and s ...

s when they file suit for

libel Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...

(defamatory printed communications). Compared to other individuals who are less well known to the general public, public officials and public figures are held to a higher standard for what they must prove before they may succeed in a defamation lawsuit.

History

This term was adopted by the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

in its landmark 1964 ruling in ''

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan ''New York Times Co. v. Sullivan'', 376 U.S. 254 (1964), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution's freedom of speech protections limit the ability of American public officials to sue for ...

'', in which the

Warren Court The Warren Court was the period in the history of the Supreme Court of the United States during which Earl Warren served as Chief Justice. Warren replaced the deceased Fred M. Vinson as Chief Justice in 1953, and Warren remained in office until ...

held that: Although defined within the context of a media defendant, the rule requiring proof of actual malice applies to all defendants including individuals. The standard can make it very difficult to prevail in a defamation case, even when allegations made against a public figure are unfair or are proved to be false. Rather than being newly invented for the case, the term was a term from existing libel law. In many jurisdictions, proof of "actual malice" was required for punitive damages to be awarded or for other increased penalties. For example, ''Times v. Sullivan'' examined an existing Alabama statute that required proof of actual malice before an award of punitive damages would be permitted. Since proof of the writer's malicious intentions is hard to ascertain, proof that the writer knowingly published a falsehood was generally accepted as proof of malice, under the assumption that only a malicious person would knowingly publish a falsehood. In ''Sullivan'', the Supreme Court adopted the term and gave it constitutional significance and defined it in terms of the proof that was usual.

Proof of malice

Actual malice is different from

common law In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...

malice, a term that indicates spite or ill will. It may also differ from malice as defined in state libel law, as reflected in the 1983 case of ''

Carol Burnett v. National Enquirer, Inc. ''Carol Burnett v. National Enquirer, Inc.'' was a decision by the California Court of Appeal, which ruled that the "actual malice" required under California law for imposition of punitive damages is distinct from the "actual malice" required by ' ...

'', although states may not define a lower threshold for defamation claims than that required by the First Amendment. The existence of actual malice may be shown in many ways, as long as the claim is properly supported by admissible evidence. Malice may be proven through any competent evidence, either direct or circumstantial. All of the relevant circumstances surrounding the transaction may be shown, provided they are not too remote, including threats, other defamatory statements, subsequent statements made by the defendant, any circumstances that indicate the existence of rivalry, ill will, or hostility between the parties, and facts that tend to show a reckless disregard of the plaintiff's rights on the part of the defendant.

References

{{reflist Defamation

History

Proof of malice

See also

References