S.C. Supreme Court holds that guardian ad litems are not typically public figures in defamation cases

In Erikson v. Jones Street Publishers, the Supreme Court issued an opinion on various facets of defamation law. One of the key holding was that a private citizen serving as a guardian ad litem in family court proceedings is not a public figure and therefore only has to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the statements made be the newspaper were false and defamatory.

This case provides a nice summary of South Carolina's law of defamation.