Hanson v. Krehbiel
| Decision Date | 12 March 1904 |
| Docket Number | 13,500 |
| Citation | 68 Kan. 670,75 P. 1041 |
| Parties | JOHN F. HANSON v. WILLIAM J. KREHBIEL |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
Decided January, 1904.
Error from McPherson district court; M. P. SIMPSON, judge.
Judgment reversed.
SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.
1. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW -- Libel -- Void Statute. Chapter 249, Laws of 1901 (Gen. Stat. 1901, ch. 57b) relating to libel, is unconstitutional and void, being in conflict with section 18 of the bill of rights, in that it denies the right in certain cases to one injured in his reputation to have a remedy therefor by due course of law.
2. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW -- "Remedy by Due Course of Law" -- Definition. "Remedy by due course of law," as used in section 18 of the bill of rights, means the reparation for injury, ordered by a tribunal having jurisdiction, in due course of procedure and after a fair hearing.
3. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW -- Constitutional Right Not Satisfied by Statute. The right to a remedy by due course of law is not satisfied by the requirement contained in a statute to make specific reparation for the injury done, which reparation is the same in all cases, bears no relation to the injury suffered, and has not been decreed by a tribunal after ascertainment of the extent of such injury.
4. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW -- Statute, if Separable, May be Void in Part. While one part of a statute may be unconstitutional and void and another part good, this is the case only where the portions are clearly separable and susceptible of separate enforcement; but when it is apparent that the entire faulty enactment is designed to constitute a complete whole, and that one part would not have been enacted except in connection with the other, if a part is found to be bad, the entire statute must fall.
5. LIBEL -- Sufficient Publication -- General Damages Recoverable. A false publication, charging that one had been arrested under an accusation of assault and threatened violence with a pistol, in an attempt to collect a bill, is libelous per se, and the libeled one may have general damages, without alleging or proving specific injury.
John F. Hanson, for plaintiff in error.
P. J. Galle, for defendant in error.
OPINION
Plaintiff's action was for the recovery of damages occasioned by the publication of an alleged libel. The question of greatest moment involved is the constitutional validity of chapter 249, Laws of 1901 (Gen. Stat. 1901, ch. 57b), which reads as follows:
This is assailed as being violative of section 18 of the bill of rights, which reads:
"All persons, for injuries suffered in person, reputation or property, shall have remedy by due course of law, and justice administered without delay."
It will be noted that the statute questioned limits the right of recovery in cases of libel to actual damages where, after service of the notice provided in the first section, the publisher of the newspaper in which the libelous matter has appeared makes a full and fair retraction, coupled with a showing upon the trial that it was published in good faith, under a misapprehension of the facts. This statute also declares that class of damages to be such as the plaintiff has suffered in respect to his property, business, trade, profession, or occupation. So that, in such cases, the libeled party may not recover all his damage, but is confined to the narrow class defined and designated in the act as actual damages.
The common law recognizes two classes of damages in libel cases--general and special. General damages are those which the law presumes must naturally, proximately and necessarily result from the publication of the libelous matter. They arise by inference of law and are not required to be proved by evidence. They are allowable whenever the immediate tendency of the words is to impair the plaintiff's reputation, although no actual pecuniary loss has, in fact, resulted, and are designed to compensate for that large and substantial class of injuries arising from injured feelings, mental suffering and anguish, and personal and public humiliation, consequent upon the malicious publication of false and libelous matter. The injuries for which this class of damages is allowed are something more than merely speculative. While not susceptible of being accurately measured in dollars and cents, they are real injuries, and often more substantial and real than those designated as actual, and measured accurately by the dollar standard. In short, they are such injuries to the reputation as were contemplated in the bill of rights. The law presumes that this class of injuries results necessarily from the publication of the libelous matter, and the damages, therefore, are recoverable without special assignment. Special damages, also recoverable when properly pleaded and shown, are such damages as are computable in money, and may be said fairly to be embraced in the list of actual damages, as given in the statute referred to. This is the present condition of the law, as it was also at the time of the adoption of our constitution, and these are the injuries to reputation, for which it provided that there should be "remedy by due course of law."
It requires no argument to demonstrate that the act in question denies a remedy for some of these injuries. Unless the one libeled has suffered in the particular manner pointed out in the statute, he is without remedy. For that large class of persons and still larger class of injuries not falling within the provisions of this statute, no remedy is found. From the writings of the world's wisest man we have the assurance that "a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches;" yet the possessor of this thing of greatest value, being despoiled of it, is left by the statute in question entirely without remedy for its loss, except in such rare cases where he may be able to show some exact financial injury in the particulars named. We could not excuse ourselves for holding that reputation is less valuable that property, or that by the quoted provision of the bill of rights it is less protected from spoliation.
It is suggested that the retraction required by the act to be published is a fair compensation for the injury done, and a reinvestment of the libeled one with his good name; that, this being done, nothing more could be accomplished by a verdict of a jury, and, hence, that the retraction required by the legislative enactment, if not "due course of law," is an ample substitute for it.
It is not an easy matter...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Hilburn
... ... Gibson v. Friedley, 135 Ind. 119, 34 N.E. 872, 21 L. R ... A. 634; Rathbone v. Wirth, 150 N.Y. 459, 45 N.E. 15, ... 34 L. R. A. 408; Hanson v. Krehbiel, 68 Kan. 670, 75 ... P. 1041, 64 L. R. A. 790, 104 Am. St. Rep. 422; Low v ... Rees Printing Co., 41 Neb. 127, 59 N.W. 362, 24 L ... ...
-
Holden v. Pioneer Broadcasting Co.
...forms, would be the law of the land * * *.' The principles found in the Dartmouth College case are relied upon in Hanson v. Krehbiel, 68 Kan. 670, 75 P. 1041, 64 L.R.A. 790. And see the discussion in 2 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations, supra, 733-741, and Griffin v. Mixon, 38 Miss. 424, T......
-
Manzanares v. Bell
...and public humiliation, resulting from the malicious publication of false and libelous matters by newspapers. In 1904 in Hanson v. Krehbiel, 68 Kan. 670, 75 P. 1041, we held that statute unconstitutional as being in conflict with Section 18 of the Kansas Bill of Rights in that it denied in ......
-
Boswell v. Phoenix Newspapers, Inc.
...to ours, holding that it violated the Kansas access to justice provisions guaranteeing a "remedy by due course of law." Hanson, 68 Kan. at 672-78, 75 P. at 1042-44.The cases must be very rare in which a libel will destroy business profits in such a way that the loss can be directly traced t......