Broeck v. Journal Printing Co.

• Decision Date: 11 February 1926
• Docket Number: 25,082
• Citation: 207 N.W. 497,166 Minn. 173
• Parties: LOUIS L. TEN BROECK v. JOURNAL PRINTING COMPANY AND ANOTHER
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

207 N.W. 497

166 Minn. 173

LOUIS L. TEN BROECK v. JOURNAL PRINTING COMPANY AND ANOTHER

No. 25,082

Supreme Court of Minnesota

February 11, 1926

Action in the district court for Hennepin county to recover damages for libel. The case was dismissed by Montgomery, J., at the trial upon the ground that the complaint did not state a cause of action. Plaintiff appealed from an order denying his motion for a new trial. Affirmed.

SYLLABUS

Newspaper article not libelous per se.

1. A newspaper article which is not self-evidently defamatory is not libelous per se.

Complaint defective.

2. Complaint on such an article held defective because it does not plead any extrinsic circumstances showing that the article was libelous in fact.

Libel and Slander, 36 C.J. p. 1150 n. 74; 37 C.J. pp. 22 n. 16; 23 n. 24; 71 n. 84.

Per M Larson and Olof L. Bruce, for appellant.

James E. O'Brien and Edward S. Bade, for respondents.

OPINION

STONE, J.

Action for libel, at the trial dismissed upon objection that the complaint did not state a cause of action. Plaintiff appeals from the order denying his motion for a new trial.

Defendant printing company publishes the Minneapolis Journal and defendant Colby is in its employ as a reporter. Plaintiff is a physician and surgeon and for some time before August 27, 1922, resided at 4001 Grand avenue south, Minneapolis. On that day, the complaint alleges, defendants published in the Journal the article which, plaintiff claims, charged him with maintaining a brothel and "abortion establishment." It reads as follows:

"SURGEON'S TABLE IN MYSTERY HOUSE

"Woman's Screams Over Phone Lead Police to Suddenly Vacated Dwelling.

"Tunnel like passage leading out of a basement in which there was a surgeon's operating table, was found by Patrolmen Edward Jones and Emil Neuson, police wagon-driver, at a house at 4001 Grand avenue, late yesterday, Captain of Detectives Frank Brunskill, said last night. The police were sent to the house from the fifth precinct station after a telephone call from the switchboard operator at the Colfax Exchange, who reported she had heard over the wire from this house a woman's screams and a man's voice saying 'What are you doing?' Captain Brunskill said.

"In the rooms of the first floor the police found three beds and a dresser, Captain Brunskill said. The upstairs he said was luxuriously furnished. No one was found in the house at the time. Detective Forby has been assigned to watch it."

The falsity of the article and that it was intended to and did refer to plaintiff are averred, also that general and special damages resulted. The dismissal below was predicated upon the view that the article was not libelous per se and that there were no allegations of extrinsic facts showing that it was libelous otherwise. These questions we consider in their order.

1. It is too clear for much discussion that the article is not libelous per se. That is because its statements are not "clearly defamatory on their face." Pratt v. Pioneer Press Co. 30 Minn. 41, 14 N.W. 62. "Words which, upon their face and without the aid of extrinsic proof are injurious, are libelous per se, but if the injurious character of the words appear, not from their face in their usual and natural signification, but only in consequence of extrinsic circumstances, they are not libelous per se." Fry v. McCord, 95 Tenn. 678 (684), 33 S.W. 568, 570, citing Newell, Defamation, §§ 34, 35.

Any reading, casual or close, of the article is question leads to the conclusion that every word may be true and yet every owner or tenant of the premises be innocent of crime or other wrong. If, in fact, it was libelous, it was not so because of the literal meaning of the language, but because of the interpretation put upon it by reason of some peculiar facts, wholly external to the publication itself, which gave it the sinister meaning complained of.

2. The only thing in the complaint which is put forward as a pleading of such external facts is this:

"Plaintiff further alleges that by the said article the defendants and each of them intended to and did declare as follows: That the said physician was and is * * *, the plaintiff above named; that the premises * * * was the residence and office of * * * the plaintiff herein, and was used by him as a physician and surgeon; that [he] * * * used the said premises and operated the same for illicit, immoral and criminal practice in his profession * * *. That [he] * * * was not a respectable and reliable physician and surgeon but that he maintained a houses of ill-fame and an abortion establishment. That each and all of the readers of the said Minneapolis Journal and the said libelous article understood and believed that the said article referred to the plaintiff."

On inspection, that language reduces itself to a mere...