Atlanta News Pub. Co. v. Medlock

• Decision Date: 03 August 1905
• Citation: Atlanta News Pub. Co. v. Medlock, 123 Ga. 714, 51 S.E. 756 (Ga. 1905)
• Parties: ATLANTA NEWS PUB. CO. v. MEDLOCK (three cases).
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

51 S.E. 756

123 Ga. 714

ATLANTA NEWS PUB. CO. v. MEDLOCK (three cases).

Supreme Court of Georgia

August 3, 1905

Syllabus by the Court.

A writing containing a statement that a person had been "bribed" to testify as a witness against one party and in the interest of his adversary imputes to such person the crime of perjury, and is libelous.

The privileged communications, recognized in the law of slander and libel as freeing the speaker or writer from liability are of two classes--the one where the privilege is absolute and the other where the privilege is conditional.

"The characteristic feature of absolute, as distinguished from conditional, privilege, is that in the former the question of malice is not open.All inquiry into good faith is closed."

In every case of conditional privilege, if the privilege is used merely as a cloak for venting private malice, and not bona fide in promotion of the object for which the privilege is granted, the party defamed has a right of action.

An attorney at law has a conditional privilege to make, during the progress of a trial, such fair comments on the circumstances of the case and the conduct of the parties in connection therewith as in his judgment seems proper.

Ordinarily the publisher of a newspaper has no privilege as to what appears therein, but is liable for the same as any other person.

The publisher of a newspaper is, however, authorized to publish a fair and honest report of the proceedings of a judicial trial, and is not liable on account of such publication, in the absence of express malice; and this is true, although what appears in such report as a part of the comments of counsel would have been slanderous if uttered under other circumstances by the attorney.

Where a publication is made in a newspaper of the proceedings of a judicial trial, in which appears what purports to be the remarks of counsel made during the progress of the case which are slanderous in their nature, and such remarks were not in fact made by the counsel, the publisher is liable in an action of libel to the party aggrieved.

There was no error in overruling the general demurrer to the petitions.

Those portions of the petitions which were made the subject of special demurrers were allegations which were permissible as matter of inducement or aggravation, or by way of innuendo and therefore were properly embraced within the pleadings, and were not subject to the objections taken in the demurrers.

Error from City Court of Atlanta; H. M. Reid, Judge.

Action by C. E. Medlock, by her next friend, by M. O. Medlock, by her next friend, and by W. W. Medlock, by his next friend, against the Atlanta News Publishing Company.Demurrers to the declaration were overruled, and defendant brings error.Affirmed.

Portions of petitions, in an action for libel, which were permissible as matter of inducement or aggravation, were properly embraced within the pleadings, and were not subject to demurrer.

Three Medlocks, aged, respectively, 13, 14, and 15 years, brought their separate suits for libel against the Atlanta News Publishing Company, a corporation.The petitions in the three cases were substantially the same, and were in substance as follows: The defendant publishes a newspaper known as the ""Atlanta News," which claims a circulation of nearly 25,000.On August 23, 1902, Mrs. Moxley, an aunt of the plaintiffs, brought suit against the Georgia Railway & Electric Company, seeking to recover damages for two injuries which she claimed to have received while a passenger upon a car of that company--one on July 11, 1902, and the other on July 15th.The plaintiffs were present when Mrs. Moxley was hurt on the latter occasion, and were subpoenaed as witnesses by the railway company, and testified in the case, honestly and fairly relating what happened on the occasion in question.After they had testified, and before the case was concluded, on January 22, 1904, the defendant published in its newspaper the following article:

"Bribery is Charged to Railway Company.

Prominent Attorney in Speech Says Witnesses are Bribed.

A sensational charge of bribery was laid against the Georgia Railway and Electric Company by Colonel W. P. Andrews in the Second division of the City Court this morning.The case of Mrs. Louise E. Moxley against the railway company for $12,000, for alleged personal injuries, was on trial, when Colonel Andrews, Mrs. Moxley's attorney, made several sensational statements in his speech to the jury.Mrs. Moxley claims to have been injured some months ago while in the act of alighting from the car.She claims that it has effected her nervous system greatly, as well as her physical condition.She is unable to walk and is rolled about in a chair.

The Georgia Railway and Electric Company brought three children into court to testify that Mrs. Moxley had suffered all her life from the troubles alleged to have been received from the injury; and Colonel Andrews stated that they had paid these children $2 each to come into court as witnesses.

The Georgia Railway and Electric Company put two dollars into the palm of these little children and dragged them here into court after having Mr. Simmons talk with them for an hour, and knowing full well what they were going to say before they came here, said the attorney.Colonel Andrews stated that the defendant company had gone to see three little children, Carrie Medlock, 13 years old, Mary Medlock, 16 years old, and Wood Medlock, 15 years old, the nieces and nephew of the plaintiff, and bribed them to testify against her and in the interests of the company.Some allusion to this alleged bribery was made in the argument yesterday, and Attorney Ben Conyers for the railway company admitted that they had paid the witnesses two dollars each.

Colonel Andrews says: 'When they pay them this money they expect value received, and the value received in this case is bought testimony.They make these little children as corrupt as the fountains of hell.'

The attorneys for the railway company did not reply to these charges in the courtroom."

It is alleged that the article is a false and malicious defamation in writing, tending to expose the plaintiffs to public hatred, contempt, and ridicule; that the charges and intimations there set forth were made maliciously; that the attorney for Mrs. Moxley was president of the defendant company, was present during the entire trial, and well knew that no such charges or accusations as set out in said article had been made against the plaintiffs; that the effect of the article was to create the impression upon the minds of the readers that the plaintiffs had been bribed by the railway company to testify falsely, and that they had for a money consideration so testified; that the article in effect charges that the plaintiffs had made a corrupt bargain to testify falsely and had carried the same into effect; that the plaintiffs are the witnesses referred to in the article and the defendant, by its publication, did declare to the public that its president, the attorney for Mrs. Moxley, had in open court charged that the plaintiffs had given "bought testimony," and that the railway company had made them "as corrupt as the fountains of hell"; that the publication was false and malicious, that no such charges were in fact made by the attorney, and the defendant, through its president, who was such attorney, well knew this fact, and the motive of the article was to defame the plaintiffs and expose them to public hatred, ridicule, and contempt.The defendant filed a demurrer in each case, containing numerous grounds, among others, that the petition does not set forth a cause of action; the words alleged are not libelous per se; if they can be so construed, they show upon their face that some one other than the plaintiffs was libeled; they do not purport to be a statement or declaration of the defendant, but merely of an attorney in an argument before the jury in a case in court, and are consequently not libelous; they are nothing more than the comments of counsel in the...