In any civil action where punitive damages are claimed, the plaintiff has the burden of proving such damages by clear and convincing evidence.
S.C. Code Ann. § 15-33-135
Punitive damages: burden of proof
Applied in 34 court decisions — leading case Transportation Insurance Co. v. Moriel (1994)
Most recently applied in Wickersham v. Ford Motor Co. (July 2016)
1988 Act No. 432, SECTION 4.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: South Carolina Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain South Carolina statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.