Castelloe v. Phelps

• Decision Date: 12 March 1930
• Docket Number: 107.
• Citation: 152 S.E. 163,198 N.C. 454
• Parties: CASTELLOE v. PHELPS.
• Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

152 S.E. 163

198 N.C. 454

CASTELLOE v. PHELPS.

No. 107.

Supreme Court of North Carolina

March 12, 1930

Appeal from Superior Court, Bertie County; Small, Judge.

Civil action for slander by Dwight M. Castelloe against Norman G Phelps. From a judgment of nonsuit, plaintiff appeals.

Reversed.

Whether signification is defamatory is for court, where alleged defamatory publication, when considered as generally understood bears out but one interpretation.

Defendant's plea of qualified privilege cannot defeat plaintiff's right to go to jury on question in what sense spoken words were understood.

The evidence discloses that plaintiff was principal of Colerain High School and defendant a member of the board of trustees of said school. In the early morning of December 9, 1924 about 7 a. m., five of the lady teachers of said school reported to the defendant at his home that the plaintiff had wrongfully accused them the night before of having a man in their room in the teacherage, and that they had come to tender their resignations; whereupon, the defendant called the plaintiff into a conference with the school board and the lady teachers in question. It is alleged that, during said conference, the defendant lost his temper and angrily addressed the plaintiff, loud enough to be heard by all those present and others on the outside, in words, in substance, as follows: "Mr. Castelloe, you have committed a crime and you ought to be put on the roads."

It is further in evidence that thereafter, and during the morning of the same day, the defendant, while in conversation with the matron of the school, voluntarily repeated, in substance language to the same import of and concerning the plaintiff.

About 9:15 p. m. that night the defendant came to the plaintiff at the dormitory and said, "Mr. Castelloe, we have come for your resignation," and, pointing to eighteen or twenty men, who were standing under a tree about fifty or sixty feet away, added, "Those men have come here after you and you had better get out of Colerain tonight," which he did.

Plaintiff says the words used by the defendant, viewed in the light of the attendant circumstances, by fair intendment, meant to charge that the plaintiff had uttered a criminal slander against the teachers in question, and that they were so understood by those who heard them. Plaintiff testified that no such insinuation was made or intended by him, and that he had only charged the parties in question with a violation of the rules of the school.

From a judgment of nonsuit entered at the close of all the evidence, the plaintiff appeals, assigning errors.

W. H. S. Burgwyn, of Jackson, E. R. Tyler, of Roxobel, and A. T. Castelloe, of Aulander, for appellant.

R. Hunt Parker, of Roanoke Rapids, and J. A. Pritchett and J. H. Matthews, both of Windsor, for appellee.

STACY C.J.

Are the words, "You have committed a crime and you ought to be put on the roads," addressed to one in the presence of others, and later repeated to another, actionable per se? We think so, when viewed in the light of their imputation and the circumstances under which they were uttered in the instant case.

The words spoken by the defendant, considering the manner and circumstances of their use, as pointed out in Cotton v. Fisheries Products Co., 177 N.C. 56, 97 S.E. 712, permit the inference, and were probably understood by those who heard them to mean, that the defendant intended to impute to the plaintiff, and did charge him with having uttered, a criminal slander, for which, he added, the plaintiff ought to be put on the roads; i. e., subjected to infamous punishment. If such be the meaning of the language used, and the plaintiff says that it is, then, under the decision in Jones v. Brinkley, 174 N.C. 23, 93 S.E. 372, the words employed by the defendant are actionable per se. Vincent v. Pace, 178 N.C. 421, 100 S.E. 581.

The...