Smith v. Buck
| Decision Date | 13 June 1928 |
| Docket Number | 20867 |
| Citation | 119 Ohio St. 101,162 N.E. 382 |
| Parties | Smith Et Al. v. Buck. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Attachment - "Personal injury" define - Section 11819, General Code - Libel or slander included within "personal injury" by "wrongful act."
1. The words "personal injury" as defined by lexicographers jurists and text writers, and by common acceptance, denote an injury either to the physical body of a person or to the reputation of a person, or to both.
2. The words "personal injury" by "wrongful act," of Section 11519, General Code, comprehend, among other injuries to the person, injury by libel or slander.
The facts are stated in the opinion.
Messrs Parkhurst & Buckingham, for plaintiffs in error.
Messrs Young & Young, for defendant in error.
The sole question in this case is whether a slander is a "personal injury" by a "wrongful act," within the intent and meaning of the proviso to Section 11819, General Code, "an attachment shall not be granted on the ground that the defendant is a foreign corporation or not a resident of this state, for any claim other than a debt or demand, arising upon contract, judgment or decree, or for causing damage to property or death or personal injury by negligent or wrongful act." 109 Ohio Laws, 59. The trial court in this case held that it is not. The Court of Appeals on error held that it is.
The solution of the question depends upon the sense and meaning in which the Legislature used the word "personal." The word is one in common use, and, in the absence of anything in the context of the act to indicate its use by the Legislature other than in its ordinary and generally accepted meaning, will be construed as having been so used by the Legislature. The word is defined in Webster's New International Dictionary:
The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia:
etc.
The American Encyclopedia Dictionary:
We cannot escape the conclusion that the common, usual, and generally accepted meaning of the word "personal" is that it relates to either the physical body of a person or the character, conduct, manner, and habits of a person, or both; that such has been its meaning from time immemorial. Textwriters and jurists have so used it. Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, under the chapter "Of the Rights of Persons," classifies reputation as one of the enumerated rights of personal security. Chancellor Kent, in his Commentaries on American Law, places slander and libel tinder the classification of personal security, and says:
"As a part of the right of personal security, the preservation of every person's good name from the vile arts of detraction is justly included.
Sir Frederick Pollock, in his treatise on the Law of Torts groups slander and libel among personal wrongs, "wrongs affecting personal reputation; slander and libel. Judge Cooley, in his treatise on Torts, under the subject of personal rights, says:
"In all enlightened countries the same class would also include the right to the benefit of such reputation as one's conduct has entitled him to," as one of the personal rights.
In the state of New York the Legislature, by statutory definition has declared:
"A personal injury includes libel, slander, * * *."
It is urged, however, that because this amendment to that portion of Section 11819, extending the right to secure jurisdiction over the property of a nonresident defendant by attachment, in actions for damage to property or for death or personal injury by negligent or wrongful act, was enacted since the advent and common use of the motor vehicle, with its attendant dangers and the facility it affords to quickly escape the jurisdiction in which the injury occurs, it was enacted to provide a process to persons physically injured or to the legal representatives of persons killed, whereby they can require such nonresident defendant to answer in any forum where property of such nonresident can be found; and we are therefore asked to construe this provision of Section 11819 so as to express that intention of the Legislature. In other words, we are asked to ascertain the intention of the Legislature from facts extraneous to the act and extraneous to related legislation, and then to interpret that which the Legislature did enact as meaning that which we find, from such extraneous information and investigation, it intended to enact.
This court, in the case of Slingluff v. Weaver, 66 Ohio St. 621, 64 N. E., 574, declared:
For obvious reasons, courts ought not to add uncertainty to the meaning and effect of the language used in an enactment by restricting the accepted and generally understood meaning of common words. Such a restriction by construction is justifiable only when the restricted use is made to appear by the act itself or by related legislation. It would have been perfectly feasible for the Legislature to have used, in place of the word "personal," one of several words, such as "bodily" "corporeal," or "physical," in which case the right to obtain jurisdiction over the property of a defendant in cases of libel, slander, and the like would not have been created by that section.
It is said in 2 Sutherland's Statutory Construction, Section 389:
The exact question here was decided by the Supreme Court of North Carolina in the case of Tisdale v. Eubanks, 180 N. C., 153, 104 S. E., 339, 11 A.L.R. 374, the court there holding:
"The security of a person's good name and reputation is within his personal rights as a citizen, and slander thereof is an injury to his person, and will sustain a proceeding for an attachment within the intent and meaning of Rev. 728 [7581 (4), as an 'injury to the person by * * * wrongful act'."
In the case of Johnson, Admx., v. Bradstreet Co., 87 Ga. 79, 13 S E., 250, the court had under consideration an act providing that no action "for homicide, injury to person or injury to property shall abate by death,"...
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