Easley v. Express Publishing Company, 13098
| Decision Date | 23 January 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 13098,13098 |
| Citation | 299 S.W.2d 782 |
| Parties | Ralph V. EASLEY, Appellant, v. EXPRESS PUBLISHING COMPANY, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Schweppe, Schweppe & Allison, San Antonio, for appellant.
Denman, Franklin & Denman, Carl Wright Johnson, Nat L. Hardy, San Antonio, for appellee.
Plaintiff, Ralph V. Easley, refused to amend his petition after the trial court sustained special exceptions to his allegations of a newspaper libel, and the trial court dismissed the suit. The narrow issue on this appeal is whether the petition alleges words of defamation. Because the case was dismissed after sustaining exceptions, the question is one of law. The court never reached the questions of fact nor the defenses to the libel charged.
Plaintiff, Easley, during March, 1954, was a member of the San Antonio City Council. On March 24th the defendant published a front-page article which reported the formation of a 'big-time gambling combine' in San Antonio. The article stated that several 'gambling czars from bigmoney hideaways' and two 'public officials' met and formed a gamblers 'cooperative.' The purposes of the meeting and the 'formation of the crime clique' were to oust the Chief of Police, to 'open wide the city,' and to preserve an open-city policy. On March 25 and 26, the defendant published an additional article, written by Paul Thompson, which described a tense struggle for power between two factions of the City Council. One faction of three persons he called 'White-Wingers, * * * so tagged because it reputedly takes orders from ailing Mayor Jack White.' Three other council members composed the other faction. Mr. R. L. Lester, a seventh council member, was described as the one who held the balance of power. The burden of the last article was that each of the evenly divided factions was seeking to win Lester to its side. The article thus presented a situation of a divided city council, and then stated:
'It is not easy to see how he can avoid these two things if he lets the White Wingers establish him as mayor.
'On the other hand, Councilman Lester can achieve a lifelong ambition, sit produly as the city's No. 1 citizen, rule wisely and go down in the archives as a good and honorable man-all by the simple expedient of playing ball with anti-White members of the council.'
Plaintiff, Easley, after setting forth those articles in full, alleged that the articles falsely implied that he favored turning San Antonio into an 'open city' and was actively working and plotting with gamblers and racketeers for that purpose; that they falsely implied that he was a dishonest city councilman, guilty of misconduct and lacking in integrity; and that he suffered injury to his reputation.
The court sustained the following special exceptions: That the first article did not in any manner identify the plaintiff as one of 'two public officials,' who attended the gamblers' organizational meeting; that none of the innuendoes alleged can be drawn from the articles; that the last article contained no language which could be construed to mean that Easley favored turning the city into an open city, or that he was a corrupt and dishonorable councilman, or that the articles injured his reputation for honesty and integrity. The greater part of the articles is non-defamatory. Since the entire action was dismissed, we must determine if any part may be libelous.
(1) The first article published on March 24 did not name any persons, but stated that two public officials attended the meeting...
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