Flowers v. Price

• Decision Date: 09 January 1940
• Docket Number: 14998.
• Citation: 6 S.E.2d 750,192 S.C. 373
• Parties: FLOWERS v. PRICE.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

6 S.E.2d 750

192 S.C. 373

FLOWERS v. PRICE.

No. 14998.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

January 9, 1940

C E. Gardner, of Darlington, for appellant.

Samuel Want, of Darlington, for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

This is an action for damages on account of certain alleged slanderous statements made of and concerning the plaintiff by an agent of the defendant Price.

Succinctly stated, the complaint alleged that Price in 1938 operated a tobacco sales warehouse in the town of Darlington, and that on August 28th of that year plaintiff carried a load of tobacco, grown by him and one James Gandy on a share crop basis, to such warehouse for the purpose of having it sold there; that he noticed, in standing around, that defendant's agent was weighing short the tobacco of others, and that he requested the next morning, August 29 1938, before his tobacco should be offered for sale, that it be reweighed; that this being done as to a part of it, it was found that several baskets weighed more than they did the night before; that the defendant's agent, after some words thereabout cursed the plaintiff and told him that if he was not satisfied to take his tobacco to some other warehouse, which he did; that on the same date, August 29th, the plaintiff happened to go back into defendant's warehouse, and the agent asked him "if he had been telling that they were short weighing tobacco or cheating people out of tobacco", and that he told him that "he had the proof that his was weighed short by defendant"; and that the defendant's agent then and there said in the presence of the said James Gandy, and others: "Some one stole thirty pounds of another man's tobacco back here in the warehouse and how do we know that you did not take his tobacco and put it on yours and carry it over to the other warehouse."

It was also alleged that this statement of the agent of the defendant was malicious and false, and was intended to and did charge the plaintiff with the doing of an act involving moral turpitude, to wit, the commission by him of the crime of theft or larceny, which is an indictable offense--"all of which was so understood by the said James Gandy and others whose names plaintiff does not know"; and that such defamatory statement was published by defendant with the malicious intent to harm and injure the plaintiff, and has done so, in his business, credit character and reputation, and was made by the agent of the defendant "while acting within the apparent and actual scope of his authority".

The defendant demurred to the complaint on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action in that (a) the alleged slanderous language was and is not slander per se, and is not rendered slanderous in fact by the circumstances set forth in the complaint; (b) in that it does not appear from the complaint that at the time of the utterance of the alleged slander by an agent of the defendant, such agent was in fact and in law engaged in the performance of duties for the defendant; (c) in that the alleged slander was provoked by the plaintiff; and (d) in that the complaint fails to show that the plaintiff suffered any loss or damage by reason of the utterance of the alleged slanderous words.

Judge Dennis, who heard the matter, sustained the demurrer. He held that the parties were engaged in a verbal altercation; and that the words alleged to have been used by the defendant's agent did not constitute a direct charge of a crime. Not only this, but that they lacked the necessary implication of larceny on the part of the plaintiff which must appear in order to make them actionable, as it was wholly improbable that any one hearing the language in the circumstances under which it was used could have inferred that the defendant's agent intended to charge the plaintiff with the crime of larceny. He did not pass upon the ground of the demurrer, namely, that the complaint does not allege that the agent who...