Cole v. Millspaugh

• Decision Date: 27 May 1910
• Docket Number: Nos. 16,560 - (112.),s. 16,560 - (112.)
• Parties: DANIEL G. COLE v. FRANK R. MILLSPAUGH.<SMALL><SUP>1</SUP></SMALL>
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

111 Minn. 159

DANIEL G. COLE v. FRANK R. MILLSPAUGH.¹

Nos. 16,560 - (112.)

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

May 27, 1910.

Action in the district court for Hennepin county to recover $1,999 damages for libel. From an order, Holt, J., sustaining defendant's demurrer to the complaint, plaintiff appealed. Reversed.

Thos. D. Schall and Thomas Kneeland, for appellant.

Savage & Purdy, for respondent.

O'BRIEN, J.

Action for libel. According to the complaint, a demurrer to which was sustained upon the ground of no cause of action, the Universalist Church in Minnesota has what is known as a "fellowship committee," to which applications for pastorates are addressed. The recommendation of the committee is necessary to the obtaining of any such pastorate. Plaintiff, a duly ordained minister of the gospel, had applied to the committee for a position, and, while his application was pending, "defendant falsely and maliciously, for the purpose of preventing plaintiff from securing the pastorship of any such vacant churches, and of injuring plaintiff in his profession as a minister, wrote and published of and concerning plaintiff, and of and concerning him in his profession as a minister, to said Rev. Thomas S. Robjent and others of said fellowship committee, the following false, malicious, defamatory, and libelous words and language, to wit: `I (meaning defendant) would not have anything to do with him or touch him (meaning plaintiff) with a ten-foot pole' (thereby meaning to charge and intending to mean and charge, that plaintiff was unfit and unqualified morally and intellectually to fill the pastorship of any church, and particularly of any of said vacant pastorships of the Universalist Church aforesaid, and unfit and unsafe to fill any position of employment or place of trust, and that he was a man of bad character and poor intellectual qualifications, and untrustworthy in any place or position)."

Defendant insists that the words, "I would not have anything to do with him or touch him with a ten-foot pole," are not libelous per se, for the reason that they neither assert nor imply anything against the plaintiff, but merely state what the defendant himself would not do. Libel, as defined by section 4916, R. L. 1905, is a malicious writing which exposes one "to hatred, contempt, ridicule, or obloquy, or which shall cause or tend to cause any person to be shunned or avoided or which shall have a tendency to injure any person, corporation, or association of persons in his or their business or occupation." If a written statement is intended to, and may, as the words used are ordinarily understood, produce that result, the statute is violated, and a cause of action for general damages exists in favor of the person as to whom the statement is made.

This case is not free from difficulty. In themselves the...