AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Wakefield daily item ma8/13/2023 ![]() ![]() The demurrer was heard in the Superior Court by Broadhurst, J., and was sustained as to all counts. The defendant demurred to the declaration and to each count thereof. Neither the defence of truth nor that of privilege on the ground ofįair comment is available to the defendant on demurrer to a declaration in an action of tort against the publisher of a newspaper for an alleged libel. Plaintiff was not made directly but rather by way of repeating an allegation purporting to have been made in a "complaint" entered in court. It was not material that such published charge against the ![]() The particularity required in the statement of a case in equity forįraud is not essential to render actionable a libel charging fraud. Litigation was still in progress and there was a hearing last Monday." Held, that such a statement in its natural sense was, at least, reasonably capable of a defamatory meaning and could not be ruled, on demurrer, to be harmless, such words charging fraud by the plaintiff and not as a matter of law being saved from such a meaning by their generality or context. was thrown out of court by, who declared the time of the court and the substance of the estate were being wasted. petition, asking the removal of the administrator. induced her mother by fraudulent statements to convey her property to him. entered a complaint in the superior court. Plaintiff, though the sole heir at law of his sister, took nothing under her will, and that the sister had died suddenly, where there was no implication his sister, that the plaintiff was responsible for the sudden death of was not libellous.Ī count in the declaration above described set out as a libellousĪrticle published by the defendant a description which included the following: "To obtain an undivided half interest in her mother's estate. Matters pending in court which have not been made the subject of judicial action are not privileged, does not render actionable published statements, not in their nature defamatory, in regard to such legal proceedings.Ī statement in a newspaper, colloquially expressed, that the The established principle of the law of libel, that reports of In the declaration above described, of legal proceedings alleged to have, been begun, or attempted, by the plaintiff, including extracts from a declaration in one of them charging that he suffered in reputation, mind and body and financially from an alleged libel, and statements that one case would be vigorously contested and that others were disposed of adversely to him, though couched in language colloquial rather than technical and perhaps inelegant could not be regarded as defamatory in the absence of allegations specifying any defamatory sense in which they were used. Statements, in the alleged libellous articles set out in theĭeclaration above described, that the plaintiff had been a candidate for numerous offices and that he had initiated, or attempted to initiate, many legal proceedings, with specific references to some of them, without more, were not in ordinary circumstances libellous.Ī description, included in the alleged libellous articles set out To have been published in a newspaper published by the defendant, the plaintiff did not allege that the words complained of were used in a defamatory sense, specifying such defamatory sense, nor set out facts which showed that in consequence of the circumstances attending their publication the words were intended to convey or would or could be understood to convey a derogatory meaning not on their face, the primary question for determination upon demurrer to the declaration was whether the words themselves, taken in their natural sense and without a forced or strained construction, were defamatory. Where, in the declaration in an action of tort for a libel alleged 451 JanuOctoMiddlesex County Present: RUGG, C.J., CROSBY, WAIT, & FIELD, JJ.Īn appeal from an order of the Superior Court sustaining aĭemurrer to the declaration in an action at law properly brings to this court the,question of the propriety of such an order. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |