Goss v. Needham Co-op. Bank

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

312 Mass. 309

44 N.E.2d 690

ARTHUR C. GOSS, JUNIOR, v. THE NEEDHAM CO-OPERATIVE BANK.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

October 28, 1942

October 7, 1942.

Present: FIELD, C.

J., LUMMUS, QUA DOLAN, & COX, JJ.

Libel and Slander.

Publication by a cooperative bank in a newspaper in a community where the owner of a dwelling house lived of an advertisement signed by it containing a picture of the dwelling house and the statement, "An important question `To rent or to own'-- change a house into a home by owning it -- we will help you decide how," with evidence that the house had not been mortgaged to the bank and that readers drew the inference that the bank was offering the house for sale after having acquired it upon a foreclosure, might be found to be a libel of the owner by the bank.

TORT. Writ in the Superior Court dated February 21, 1940. The action was tried before O'Connell, J.

E. O. Proctor, for the defendant. R. Clayton, for the plaintiff.

LUMMUS, J. 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 these 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 Cooperative Bank Amos H. Shepherdson Treasurer." At the conclusion 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 raised no point not covered by the motion.

In Ingalls v Hastings & Sons Publishing Co. 304 Mass.

31, 33, 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 ordinarily reasonable men, but of any `considerable and respectable class in the community.'" Fahy v. Melrose Free Press Inc. 298 Mass. 267 . Streeter v. Eldridge, 311 Mass. 180 , 182. 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....