Goss v. Needham Co-Operative Bank

• Decision Date: 28 October 1942
• Citation: 44 N.E.2d 690,312 Mass. 309
• Parties: GOSS v. NEEDHAM CO-OPERATIVE BANK.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

312 Mass. 309

44 N.E.2d 690

GOSS

v.NEEDHAM CO-OPERATIVE BANK.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Oct. 28, 1942.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Suffolk County; D. T. O'Connell, Judge.

Action for libel by Arthur C. Goss, Jr., abainst the Needham Co-Operative Bank. Verdict for plaintiff, and defendant brings exceptions.

Exceptions overruled.

Before FIELD, C. J., and LUMMUS, QUA, DOLAN, and COX, JJ.

R. Clayton, of Boston, for plaintiff.

E. O. Proctor, of Boston, for defendant.

LUMMUS, Justice.

This is an action for libel, based upon an advertisement inserted by the defendant in a newspaper called the Needham Chronicle, published in Needham, where the plaintiff lived. The advertisement consisted of a picture of the plaintiff's house, and beneath it those words: ‘An important question ‘To rent or to own’-change a house into a home by owning it-we will help you decide how-The Needham Co-operative Bank Amos H. Shepherdson, Treasurer.' At the conslusion of the evidence, the judge denied the defendant's motion for a directed verdict, and the defendant excepted to such denial. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff. The case comes here on the defendant's exceptions to the denial of its motion, and to the denial of four requests presented by the defendant which raise no point not covered by the motion.

In Ingalls v. Hastings & Sons Publishing Co., 304 Mass. 31, 33, 22 N.E.2d 657, 658, it is pointed out that ‘a writing is a libel if, in view of all relevant circumstances, it discredits the plaintiff in the minds, not of the court * * * nor of wise, thoughtful and tolerant men, nor of ordinary reasonable men, but of any ‘considerable and respectable class in the community.’' Fahy v. Melrose Free Press, Inc., 298 Mass. 267, 10 N.E.2d 187;Streeter v. Eldridge, 311 Mass. 180, 182, 40 N.E.2d 254. It is not essential to a libel that any wrongdoing or bad character be imputed to the plaintiff. Themo v. New England Newspaper Publishing Co., 306 Mass. 54, 56, 57, 27 N.E.2d 753.

In the present case readers of the newspaper might well draw the inferences, as upon the evidence many of them could be found to have done, that the defendant was offering the house for sale and that it had acquired it upon a foreclosuredue to the plaintiff's financial inability to perform his obligations. The plaintiff testified that the defendant had no mortgage upon the house. Although inability to meet one's obligations does not necessarily show want of...