Caffey v. Moffatt
| Decision Date | 06 December 1922 |
| Parties | MARTIN L. CAFFEY v. J. H. MOFFATT |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the Circuit Court of Laclede County.--Hon. L. B Woodside, Judge.
REVERSED.
Judgment reversed.
Phil M Donnelly and L. C. Mayfield for appellant.
No brief filed by respondent.
This is a suit brought on an alleged slander charge, resulting in a judgment in plaintiff's favor for $ 400 actual damages and $ 200 punitive damages. This slander suit grows out of the following facts: The plaintiff here told certain people in his neighborhood and community that the defendant and two other men were seen in company with two women coming out from behind a brush pile out in the country on the farm which belonged to the father-in-law of this defendant. Naturally a great deal of neighborhood gossip and conversation went on about it, over the telephone and otherwise, and the defendant here with the two other men in his town who were being talked about as being in company with these women employed a man by the name of Clough, who practiced in the justice court, to go out and see the plaintiff and get him to make an affidavit which would take away the sting of a disreputable nature with reference to the statement which plaintiff had made concerning this defendant. Apparently from the record the plaintiff refused to sign up an affidavit of such a character. The plaintiff then brought this suit, charging that the defendant spread the report on him that he had made a false statement and that he had taken back what he had said that he had seen. The charge in the petition is that the defendant here stated, "I have a written statement in here (meaning in his place of business at Conway, Mo.) from Caffey (meaning this plaintiff) that there is nothing to this talk going on here." "That the tales being told on him or them had been straightened up by Martin Caffey making and signing an affidavit that there was nothing to it, and that he did not see the men and women together, and everything is all right now." "That Martin Caffey had signed an affidavit but that it did not cover all the grounds he wanted it to." "That Martin Caffey had made an affidavit, and it was not as bad as it was told." "I have an affidavit from Martin Caffey in regard to the tales that they were telling on us." "I have got it all fixed up now, Martin has signed an affidavit and acknowledged in the affidavit that he never saw us." The plaintiff then lays the innuendo that such statements were intended to be understood, and were so understood, by the hearers that this plaintiff was a falsifier and a liar, and that by such statements he had been greatly injured in his good name.
One other charge appears in the petition, which is that "Martin L. Caffey lied when he told about seeing the defendant, another man and two women on the Price farm on the 29th day of April, 1921, and that he signed an affidavit and statement wherein he acknowledged that he had lied." With reference to this last charge, we will state that there was no effect to make proof of this charge, as shown by the bill of exceptions before us.
Error is alleged on two grounds. First, that the evidence introduced by the plaintiff failed to make out the charges in the petition; second, that the instruction asked and given for plaintiff permitted recovery on a finding by the jury on the charges as set forth in the petition, and that there is no evidence which will sustain such finding in this suit. Again, it is charged that Instruction No. 2, given on behalf of plaintiff, is erroneous. That instruction is as follows:
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Sitts v. Daniel
...App. 329, 164 S. W. 241; Spillman v. Freymann (Mo. App.) 246 S. W. 976 ; Ballew v. Thompson (Mo. App.) 259 S. W. 856 ; Caffey v. Moffatt, 215 Mo. App. 105, 246 S. W. 51; Lemaster v. Ellis, supra. In the light of the above authorities, it is evident that the testimony of Robinson, as compare......
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