Montana Code Annotated 2023

TITLE 27. CIVIL LIABILITY, REMEDIES, AND LIMITATIONS

CHAPTER 1. AVAILABILITY OF REMEDIES -- LIABILITY

Part 8. Libel and Slander

Slander Defined

27-1-803. Slander defined. Slander is a false and unprivileged publication other than libel that:

(1) charges any person with crime or with having been indicted, convicted, or punished for crime;

(2) imputes in a person the present existence of an infectious, contagious, or loathsome disease;

(3) tends directly to injure a person in respect to the person's office, profession, trade, or business, either by imputing to the person general disqualification in those respects that the office or other occupation peculiarly requires or by imputing something with reference to the person's office, profession, trade, or business that has a natural tendency to lessen its profit;

(4) imputes to a person impotence or want of chastity; or

(5) by natural consequence causes actual damage.

History: En. Sec. 33, Civ. C. 1895; re-en. Sec. 3603, Rev. C. 1907; re-en. Sec. 5691, R.C.M. 1921; Cal. Civ. C. Sec. 46; Field Civ. C. Sec. 30; re-en. Sec. 5691, R.C.M. 1935; R.C.M. 1947, 64-204; amd. Sec. 593, Ch. 56, L. 2009.