Finch v. Vifquain

• Decision Date: 26 May 1881
• Citation: 9 N.W. 43,11 Neb. 280
• Parties: FINCH v. VIFQUAIN.
• Court: Nebraska Supreme Court

11 Neb. 280

9 N.W. 43

FINCH

v.VIFQUAIN.

Supreme Court of Nebraska.

Filed May 26, 1881.

Error from Lancaster county.

Mason & Whedon, for plaintiff.

Marquett, De Weese & Hall, for defendants.

LAKE, J.

This is a petition in error to reverse a judgment of the district court for Lancaster county. The judgment in question was in sustaining a general demurrer to a petition in an action for libel, the court holding that the publication complained of was not libelous.

A libel is a malicious defamation of a person expressed otherwise than by words, as by writing, print, figures, signs, or any other symbols, (Brown's Law Dictionary, 208;) or, as expressed by Chancellor Kent, it is a malicious publication, expressed either in printing or writing, or by signs or pictures, tending either to injure the memory of one dead, or the reputation of one alive, and expose him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule. 1 Kent's Com. 629.

The libel here charged was in print, and consisted of an article published by the defendants in the Daily State Democrat, a newspaper owned and controlled by them, and having a general circulation in the community where the plaintiff lived. That the article so published is within the definition of libel just given, seems to need no argument to make it clear. That it was false, and published maliciously, are conceded, until denied by answer. The petition so alleges, and the demurrer admits the truth of all matters well pleaded. Of the charges thus made against the plaintiff, the most harmful, probably, is that of being “a seducer of innocent girls;” in immediate connection with which a case is instanced of his attempt to debauch and ruin a young school girl, who at the time was a member of his own household. If this were true of the plaintiff, and generally known by his acquaintances, can any reasonable mind doubt that it would subject him to public hatred and contempt, and lead at once to his social ostracism? It is alleged in the petition “that for a long time before, and at the time of the committing of the injuries by the said defendants,” that the plaintiff had been, and still was, “grand worthy chief templar in a temperance organization in the state of Nebraska, and secretary of the State Temperance Alliance, and constantly engaged in the discharge of his duties connected with these positions.”

In view of this calling and occupation of the plaintiff, there is another charge found in the article of but little, if any,...