All words which, from their usual construction and common acceptation, are construed as insults and tend to violence and breach of the peace, shall be actionable. No demurrer shall preclude a jury from passing thereon.
W. Va. Code § 55-7-2
Insulting words
Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case 171 W. Va. 97 - Wells v. Smith (1982)
Most recently applied in Penn v. Citizens Telecom Services Co. (February 2014)
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: West Virginia Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain West Virginia statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.