Davis v. Niederhof
| Citation | 246 S.C. 192,143 S.E.2d 367 |
| Decision Date | 06 July 1965 |
| Docket Number | No. 18373,18373 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of South Carolina |
| Parties | I. E. DAVIS, Jr., Respondent, v. C. H. NIEDERHOF and West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company, Appellants. |
Connor & Connor, Kingstree, Robinson, McFadden & Moore, Columbia, for appellants.
Nettles & Thomy, Lake City, Yarborough & Nettles, Florence, J. D. O'Bryan, Sr., Kingstree, for respondent.
This action for slander resulted in a verdict for I. E. Davis, Jr., in the sum of $6,000.00 against West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company and C. H. Niederhof, who is chief of the corporation's wood procurement division in this State. The defendants have appealed from an order of the circuit court denying their motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. They abandoned their alternative motion for a new trial in the court below and the only issue before us is whether the court erred in overruling the defendants' motion for a directed verdict, which rested upon three grounds: (1) That the statement made by Niederhof was not slanderous. (2) That the statement was true. (3) That the statement was made on a privileged occasion, in good faith and without malice.
Davis became manager or operator of West Virginia's woodyard at Lake City, South Carolina, in 1956 and continued in this employment until he was discharged on October 6, 1961. It was Davis' duty, by a process of measurement called scaling, to calculate the cordage in each load of wood delivered to the yard, keep inventory records, make reports, ship wood to the mill in Charleston, etc. Davis was the only regular employee at the woodyard, which, except for casual labor, was a one man operation. Persons making deliveries of wood to the yard were paid on the basis of Davis' scaling. When the wood arrived by rail at the paper mill in Charleston, it was again scaled. The results of calculations made at the mill were compared with figures reported by Davis on a weekly basis, not lot by lot or car by car. If the woodyard shipped five cars during a week, the comparison made was the aggregate volume of wood in these cars as measured at the mill with the aggregate volume reported by the woodyard as having been shipped during the week. This procedure was followed by West Virginia with respect to wood from all of its woodyards.
Experience has shown that some differential between the woodyard and mill calculations is to be expected and a variation up to one per cent, over or under, is considered normal. When the measurement at the mill indicates a lesser volume of wood than that at the yard, an entry is made in red ink. When the converse is indicated, the differential is entered in black. The yard manager is accordingly said to be either in the red or in the black. The differential between Davis' figures and the volume of wood as scaled at the mill was about average from 1956 to June 30, 1961, when he commenced to run consistently in the red, an average of about six per cent according to Niederhof's testimony. The record affords no explanation of why these shortages developed. They persisted until the date of Davis' discharge.
West Virginia purchases most of its wood from independent pulpwood dealers. However, during the period in question, there was in operation what is referred to in the record as the direct purchase program or project, which involved the purchase by West Virginia of tracts of standing timber and contracts with independent producers to cut the trees into pulpwood and deliver the wood to the mill or to a woodyard, depending upon location. The allegedly slanderous words were spoken by Niederhof on August 23, 1961, at a regular monthly meeting of direct purchase program timber buyers. These buyers also negotiated contracts with pulpwood producers and supervised their performance. The main purpose of these meetings was to review the producer accounts with the supervisor of the program and to discuss generally any problems of the program. Niederhof usually attended and made a short talk. According to the allegations of the complaint, which are supported by testimony, on the occasion in question, he made the following statement while addressing the group of buyers:
Those present at the meeting knew that a serious shortage of wood, involving some six hundred cords worth about $12,000.00, had developed at the Darlington Woodyard, and that the manager of the yard had been dismissed under strong suspicion of stealing. They also knew that Davis, usually referred to by the witnesses as Sonny, was operator of the Lake City Woodyard.
Four of the persons present at this meeting, including the supervisor of the direct purchase program, testified that, in the light of these extrinsic facts, they regarded Niederhof's statement as an accusation that Davis was guilty of stealing pulpwood. Such a charge is, of course, actionable, absent a sufficient defense.
Furthermore, '(i)t is well settled that a crime need not be charged eo nomine for the words to be actionable. * * * 'Any words which distinctly assume or imply the plaintiff's guilt, or raise a strong suspicion of it in the minds of the hearers, are sufficient." Porter v. News and Courier Company, 237 S.C. 102, 108, 115 S.E.2d 656, 658, 659. 'It is only necessary that the words should, of themselves, or by reference to extraneous circumstances, be capable of the offensive meaning attributed to them.' Williamson v. Askin and Marine Co., 138 S.C. 47, 53, 136 S.E. 21, 23. Lily v. Belk's Department Store, 178 S.C. 278, 285, 182 S.E. 889, 892.
'(T)he alleged slanderous words used must be given their ordinary popular meaning, and if they are susceptible of two meanings, one slanderous and the other innocent, it must be left to the jury to determine from all of the circumstances attending the publication, in what sense the defendant used them.' Nettles v. MacMillan Petroleum...
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...of stealing qualifies as actionable per se because it accuses Plaintiff of a crime of moral turpitude. See Davis v. Niederhof, 246 S.C. 192, 196, 143 S.E.2d 367, 369 (S.C. 1965). A statement that is actionable per se may have its defamatory meaning "proven by the language itself or by refer......
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...a qualified privilege may be lost when actual malice is shown. Jones v. Garner, 250 S.C. 479, 487, 158 S.E.2d 909; Davis v. Niederhof, 246 S.C. 192, 199-200, 143 S.E.2d 367; Rogers v. Florence Printing Company, 233 S.C. 567, 106 S.E.2d 258; Bell v. Bank of Abbeville, 208 S.C. 490, 495, 38 S......
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...omitted). Abuse of a conditional privilege may be shown by communication that exceeds what the occasion demands. Davis v. Niederhof, 246 S.C. 192, 199-200, 143 S.E.2d 367, 371 (1965). In addition, the privilege may also be overcome by a showing of common law malice on the part of the allege......
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...Abuse of a conditional privilege may be shown by communication that exceeds what the occasion demands. Davis v. Niederhof, 246 S.C. 192, 199-200, 143 S.E.2d 367, 371 (1965). In addition, the privilege may also be overcome by a showing of common law malice on the part of the alleged defamer.......