When the leader of the South Carolina Secessionist Party announced in January that the group would be disbanding, he told news outlets that he was doing so because the group had taken a turn he didn’t like. But there ...

Tagged with: Defamation

Plaintiff alleges that he was defamed when a supervisor and his co-workers asserted that or discussed whether plaintiff was a homosexual: (1) supervisor Duncan allegedly made statements to one of plaintiff’s trainees that plaintiff “had sugar running through his veins” ...

Tagged with: Defamation

The plaintiff-teacher claims that, when she threatened to go to the police after a student assaulted her, the respondent-school and its administrators defamed her by placing her on an evaluation plan. However, it is the responsibility of education administrators to ...

Tagged with: Defamation

The plaintiff-physician alleges that the individual defendants defamed her after she reported and complained about a physician’s assistant who over-prescribed controlled substances. However, plaintiff fails to provide facts establishing how the defamatory information was published, when the information was published, ...

Tagged with: Defamation

Based on her responsibilities as set forth in the Virginia Code, a school board’s Director of Budget & Finance was a “public official” who had to show actual malice to prove that a TV news station defamed her. She failed ...

Tagged with: Defamation

Plaintiff alleges that he was the victim of identity theft, that he notified defendant USAA Federal Savings Bank about the situation and received assurances that the matter of an account opened in his name would be remedied, and that USAA ...

Tagged with: Defamation

Defendant’s employers, the Gabys, tasked him with investigating the plaintiff-designer/home builder’s progress (or lack thereof) on the Gaby project, so defendant had a qualified privilege when speaking to subcontractors and vendors on the Gaby project. However, there was evidence from ...

Tagged with: Defamation

Everything lives forever on the internet, the adage goes. While European courts have codified a “right to be forgotten” on the internet, under U.S. law it can be well-nigh impossible to get content scrubbed from websites or search engines. That’s ...

Tagged with: Defamation

Bouchard v. Synchrony Bank (Lawyers Weekly No. 002-138-16, 6 pp.) (Patrick Michael Duffy, J.) 2:16-cv-01713; D.S.C. Holding: Where plaintiff alleges, “Defendants’ false reports and furnishings of information to the effect that Plaintiff owed money was done with malicious intent, that ...

Tagged with: Defamation

Harris v. Tietex International Ltd. (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-060-16, 8 pp.) (Paul Short Jr., J.) Appealed from Spartanburg County Circuit Court (J. Derham Cole, J.) S.C. App. Holding: Plaintiff bases his defamation claims on three internal memos which concerned an ...

Tagged with: Defamation