Actual malice

In United States law, actual malice is a legal requirement imposed upon public officials or public figures when they file suit for libel (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. This term was adopted by the Supreme Court in its landmark 1964 ruling in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, in which the Warren Court held that: The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a Federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with 'actual malice'—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. 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. Actual malice is different from common law malice, a term indicating spite or ill will.

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Related concepts (5)

Actual malice

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 defamation. The decision held that if a plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit is a public official or candidate for public office, not only must they prove the normal elements of defamationpublication of a false defamatory statement to a third partythey must also prove that the statement was made with "actual malice", meaning the defendant either knew the statement was false or recklessly disregarded whether it might be false.

Defamation

Defamation, at a first approximation, is any form of communication that can injure a third party's reputation. This can include all modes of human-understandable communications: gestures, images, signs, words. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are falsifiable, and can extend to concepts that are more abstract than reputation - like dignity and honour. For a communication to be considered defamatory, it must be conveyed to someone other than the defamed.