In law, slander of title is normally a claim involving

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

in which one entity publishes a false statement that disparages or clouds another entity's title to property, causing a financial loss. Alternatively, it is casting aspersion on someone else's property, business or goods, e.g., claiming a house is infested with termites (when it is not), or falsely claiming ownership of another's

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

(what allegedly occurred in the ''

SCO v. Novell ''SCO v. Novell'' was a United States lawsuit in which the software company The SCO Group (SCO), claimed ownership of the source code for the Unix operating system. SCO sought to have the court declare that SCO owned the rights to the Unix code, ...

'' case). Slander of title is a form of

jactitation Jactitation or jactitation of marriage is an archaic cause of action in English and in Irish law. Where one person falsely asserts that he or she is married to another, the wronged party could obtain an order restraining further repetitions of the ...

. Slander of title is one of the "specialized" common law intentional torts. The State of California has adopted the definition of slander of title set forth in section 624 of the ''

Restatement of Torts In American jurisprudence, the ''Restatements of the Law'' are a set of treatises on legal subjects that seek to inform judges and lawyers about general principles of common law. There are now four series of ''Restatements'', all published by the ...

'' as follows: "One who, without a privilege to do so, publishes matter which is untrue and disparaging to another's property in land, chattels or intangible things under such circumstances as would lead a reasonable man to foresee that the conduct of a third person as purchaser or lessee thereof might be determined thereby is liable for pecuniary loss resulting to the other from the impairment of vendibility thus caused." The term slander of title is somewhat of a misnomer as slander refers to that which is spoken yet the tort slander of title requires publication. A more accurate term would be "disparagement of title" A slander of title suit can be pursued with merit in a variety of circumstances including "the filing of an invalid lien against real property or virtually any type of recordable instrument recorded against a property by one without privilege which is untrue." It is not a requirement that it be recorded, merely published, and in the broadest sense of the word. 'Published' can even refer to the placement of a

lawn sign Lawn signs (also known as yard signs, bandit signs and placards, among other names) are small advertising signs that can be placed on a street-facing lawn or elsewhere on a property to express the support for an election candidate, or political ...

with an untrue disparaging statement in front of someone's property.

References

Property law Defamation {{law-term-stub