Doan v. Kelley

• Decision Date: 10 January 1890
• Docket Number: 13,828
• Citation: 23 N.E. 266,121 Ind. 413
• Parties: Doan v. Kelley
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

23 N.E. 266

121 Ind. 413

Doan v. Kelley

No. 13,828

Supreme Court of Indiana

January 10, 1890

From the Vanderburgh Circuit Court.

The judgment is affirmed, with costs.

C. L Wedding, for appellant.

W. F Townsend, W. S. Hurst and --- Flum, for appellee.

OPINION

Mitchell, C. J.

The plaintiff, Laney Kelley, charged in her complaint that the appellant on the 20th day of November, 1885, "for the purpose of impeaching her good name, and subjecting her to public scandal and disgrace, and bringing her into disrepute among her neighbors and acquaintances," published in a newspaper of which he was the publisher and proprietor "of and concerning this plaintiff the following false, wicked and malicious libel, to wit:

"'A School Child Killed in Pike County by a Teacher.

"'On Monday last one of the scholars attending the school at Burr Oak school-house, in Jefferson township, Pike county, died under singular circumstances. It had violated some rule and the teacher, Miss Louise Kelley had just finished punishing it, when the little girl coughed and dropped to the floor with a stream of blood running from her mouth, and, before any one realized the danger, died on the floor. Great excitement prevailed as the death became known, and the teacher, a young woman, probably twenty-one years old, was arrested and taken to Petersburg, where circuit court is in session, and lodged in jail. Threats of lynching the young woman were freely made, but no attempts to carry them out developed. The death of the child probably resulted from the bursting of an internal blood vessel, possibly induced by the excitement incident to punishment.'

"Thereby meaning that this plaintiff was guilty of the crime of murdering a little child," etc.

The only question involved is whether or not, conceding, as the demurrer to the complaint does, that the publication was false, and made for the purpose charged, the matter published is per se libellous. The question having come here upon the ruling of the court on a demurrer to the complaint we are to consider the publication as a mere invention, devoid of truth, published for the purpose of scandalizing the plaintiff, and to say whether or not, when so considered, it is defamatory and libellous. Thus considered, there is no room for diverse conclusions concerning the libellous character of the article. To say that a child has been killed by its teacher, as is declared in a displayed headline, that the teacher, naming her, had been lodged in jail, and that threats of lynching her had been freely made, is certainly calculated to bring the teacher into disgrace, and make her the subject of disparaging criticism. The implication arising from the article is that a child's death had been caused by excessive or immoderate punishment, inflicted by the teacher, that the people in the vicinity had become greatly excited over the event, and...