Brown v. Harrington

• Decision Date: 18 May 1911
• Citation: 95 N.E. 655,208 Mass. 600
• Parties: BROWN v. HARRINGTON.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

208 Mass. 600

95 N.E. 655

BROWN v. HARRINGTON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

May 18, 1911

COUNSEL J. Gilbert Hill, for plaintiff.

F. W. & S.E. Qua, for defendant.

OPINION

KNOWLTON C.J.

This is an action of tort for a libel published in a newspaper in Lowell. The questions before us arise on the defendant's appeal from an order overruling a demurrer to the declaration, and on exceptions to the refusal to order a verdict for the defendant at the close of the evidence, and a refusal to give certain instructions requested. The questions upon the appeal and the refusal to order a verdict for the defendant are substantially the same, and the questions upon the other requests are kindred in character.

The publication was plainly defamatory. It covered an entire page of the newspaper and consisted of a cartoon or caricature labeled 'City Farm' and showing inmates emaciated, in various attitudes of dejection and despair, some sitting at a dining table and others rising in disgust or protest as a woman approached bearing a tray containing a small amount of food and a teapot. Towards the tray hands point from the words. 'Poor Food,' 'Rancid Butter,' 'Shadow Tea;' while just beside and behind the woman is depicted a large receptacle labeled, 'Forty Gallons of Water to a Pound of Fifteen-Cent Ea.' At the top of the page above the picture were the words in very large type 'Saving on the city's poor is the meanest kind of economy;' while underneath, in a little smaller type were the words, 'It is no crime to be poor, but it is wrong to stint the poor and the unfortunate.' Then followed this language in large print: 'Mayor Brown forced a competent and humane board of charity out of office because it would not do his bidding, and he put in the present charity board, which has been cognizant of this outrage upon the poor and unfortunate inmates of our city farm. In the name of humanity and public decency, let us go to the polls to-morrow, like men, and repudiate the mayor who has been solely responsible for this blot upon the fair name of our city.' The plaintiff was then the mayor of the city and was a candidate for re-election.

It needs no argument to show that this publication would have a tendency to hold the plaintiff up to ridicule and contempt and to inflict a serious injury upon his reputation. It represented the mayor as officially and personally responsible for a great wrong...