CT · jury_instructions
Conn. Civ. Jury Instr. 3.11-10
Defenses - Truth
As I have instructed you, the burden is on the plaintiff to prove that the defendant made the
defamatory statement about (him/her). Even if the plaintiff does prove that the statement was
made, however, (he/she) cannot recover if the statement was, in fact, true.
In the defendant's answer, (he/she) raised the defense that the statement was true. The defendant,
thus, has the burden of proving that the statement was true. The plaintiff does not have to prove
that the statement was false. To sustain this burden, the defendant must prove that the statements
were substantially true.
The defendant's proof that the statements were true must be as to all of the libelous statements
that you may find (he/she) made. In addition, the statements must have been true at the time
they were made, not true at an earlier time or prove to be true because of circumstances that
occur after they were made.
If the defendant does prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the statements (he/she)
made were substantially true at the time that (he/she) made them, then (he/she) must prevail on
his defense and your verdict should be for the defendant.
Provenance
- Source
- jud.ct.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-08-23
- Edition
- 2026-08-23
- Content hash
7ef9418a19d2082d08c3098bc4fe034fbb8d3e280d691ffa657c1efe23736f2f
The link goes to the issuing authority’s own document — the one we read to produce this record. Where a source publishes whole titles rather than sections, your browser may need a moment to jump to the provision.
Unofficial copy of government-published law, reproduced from official sources with full provenance. Not an official publication; verify against official sources before relying on it in a filing. Records in the 'guidance' corpus, and only that corpus, are sub-regulatory (interpretive guidelines, survey procedures) and are not binding law. Validity bounds follow each jurisdiction's declared temporalBasis.