In order to successfully sue someone for slander, you must prove:
- The defendant made a verbal statement to at least one other party
- The verbal statement was a false statement of fact
- The defendant knew the statement was false or acted improperly in determining whether the statement was true or not
- You were harmed in some way as a result of the defendant’s making the false statement of fact
There are different standards applied to determine if the defendant acted improperly when determining the truth of the statement.
- If you are a private figure, then you can sue if the defendant was negligent in ascertaining whether the statement was true. This means that a reasonable person would have been more cautious.
- If you are a public figure, you can successfully make a slander claim only if the defendant acted with absolute malice. This means the defendant must have either known the statement was untrue or acted with reckless disregard for whether it was true or not
The reason there is a different standard is because information about public figures is considered to be in the public interest.
Did Slander Per Se Occur?
Generally, when asking the question, can you sue someone for slander, you must determine if you can prove harm occurred. But this is not the case when slander per se occurred.
Slander per se is a legal doctrine that says some statements are so obviously slanderous and are presumed to cause such harm to your reputation that you don’t need to separately prove you were harmed. Some examples include:
- Falsely claiming you committed a crime of moral turpitude
- Falsely claiming you committed some kind of sexual misconduct such as adultery
- Falsely claiming you have an infectious or “loathsome” disease
- Falsely claiming you committed professional misconduct
If you can prove someone made these types of false statements, then you can move forward with a slander lawsuit without separately gathering additional evidence to show the statement damaged you.
You will, however, still need to show the extent of the harm so the court can determine an appropriate amount of compensation.
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