Chapman v. Gannett

• Decision Date: 15 March 1934
• Parties: CHAPMAN v. GANNETT. SAME v. PORTLAND MAINE PUB. CO.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

171 A. 397

CHAPMAN

v. GANNETT.

SAME

v. PORTLAND MAINE PUB. CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

March 15, 1934.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Cumberland County.

Actions by Philip F. Chapman against Guy P. Gannett and against the Portland Maine Publishing Company which were heard at the same sessions. The court allowed an amendment to the declaration and overruled defendant's demurrer and defendant brings exceptions.

Exceptions sustained.

Argued before PATTANGAIX, C. J., and DUNN, STURGIS, BARNES, and THAXTER, JJ.

Ralph O. Brewster, of Portland, for plaintiff.

Jacob H. Berman and Edward J. Berman, both of Portland, for defendant.

BARNES, Justice.

Both actions herein are of libel, alleged on one publication, tried and heard by this court at the same sessions. One opinion will suffice for both.

Publication was in the Portland Press Herald on May 4, 1933, when an editorial appeared under the title "Plans for Reopening Closed Banks."

In his declaration plaintiff inserted from the editorial this extract: "With reference to the so-called 'Casco Plan' which was advocated chiefly by Philip P. Chapman, former president of the closed banks," and claimed that by its publication he was damaged.

To the declaration a general demurrer was duly filed, and it was argued that the declaration set out no cause of action because the entire editorial was not published.

The effective result of the hearing on demurrer was that the same was sustained, the declaration adjudged bad, and plaintiff granted leave to amend.

In due time there was filed an amended declaration setting forth the entire editorial. In other respects the amended declaration was identical with that originally filed. The court allowed the amendment, and defendant excepted.

Defendant further filed a general demurrer to plaintiff's amended declaration, and when this demurrer was overruled, noted exceptions.

Consideration of defendant's exceptions to the overruling of the demurrer to the amended declaration will dispose of the case.

If the amendment offered and allowed is in itself demurrable, its allowance was improper. Garmong v. Henderson, 112 Me. 383, 92 A. 322; Gilbert v. Dodge, 130 Me. 417, 156 A. 891.

The declaration, both in its original form and as amended, makes clear what all intelligent readers may be held to know, that for three days, about the 4th of March, 1933, all banks in the state, of the class of banks in which plaintiff had been active, as the declaration states, were closed.

They were closed by order of government, the weak with the strong.

Plaintiff deemed the original declaration libelous because of the words already quoted, and the only words in the amended declaration urged as libelous are the same, namely: "With reference to the so-called 'Casco Plan,' which was advocated chiefly by Philip F. Chapman, former president of the closed banks."

The rule of construction in libel is acceptably stated as follows: "In determining whether a given publication is libelous, the language thereof must be taken in its ordinary significance and must be construed in the light of what might reasonably have been understood therefrom by the persons who read it. The question is how would persons of ordinary intelligence understand the language. The published article alone must be construed, stripped...