MVC Return Partial View as JSON

You can extract the html string from the PartialViewResult object, similar to the answer to this thread:

Render a view as a string

PartialViewResult and ViewResult both derive from ViewResultBase, so the same method should work on both.

Using the code from the thread above, you would be able to use:

public ActionResult ReturnSpecialJsonIfInvalid(AwesomenessModel model)
{
    if (ModelState.IsValid)
    {
        if(Request.IsAjaxRequest())
            return PartialView("NotEvil", model);
        return View(model)
    }
    if(Request.IsAjaxRequest())
    {
        return Json(new { error = true, message = RenderViewToString(PartialView("Evil", model))});
    }
    return View(model);
}