Jones v. Roberts
| Decision Date | 13 June 1901 |
| Citation | 73 Vt. 201,50 A. 1071 |
| Court | Vermont Supreme Court |
| Parties | JONES v. ROBERTS. |
Exceptions from Rutland county court; Munson, Judge.
Action by Ellis Walter Jones against Ellis Roberts. From an order sustaining a demurrer to the declaration, plaintiff brings exceptions. Reversed.
Argued before TAFT, C. J., and ROWELL, TYLER, START, and WATSON, JJ.
F. S. Piatt and Butler & Moloney, for plaintiff.
William H. Preston, for defendant.
The plaintiff alleges that the defendant wrote and published a letter, stating therein that he (the plaintiff) often visited Ellen Owens while she was in his (the defendant's) employ during the illness of his wife, and would spend a long time with her in the kitchen, and would implore her to go with him to Farnamsville; that once he took her there when the defendant's wife needed her most; that the plaintiff never visited the defendant's family before said Ellen came to it, and never did after she went away from it; that the plaintiff's conduct with the said Ellen was entirely unbecoming of him as a married man and a minister of the gospel. These are the substantial allegations of the alleged libel, and are followed by innuendoes that the meaning of what the defendant wrote in the letter, as above set forth, was that the plaintiff's visits were for unlawful and scandalous purposes; that his visits in the kitchen were long, improper, and unseemly that his imploring said Ellen, an unmarried person, to go to Farnamsville with him was for improper and illicit purposes; that when he did take her there it was for improper and illicit purposes; that the plaintiff went to the defendant's house for the sole purpose of visiting and associating in an unlawful manner with said Ellen; and also meaning to charge that the plaintiff conducted himself with said Ellen in an improper and unlawful manner; that the plaintiff had unlawful intercourse and relations with said Ellen; that the plaintiff was in fact immoral and unchaste; that he had solicited said Ellen to commit, and she had committed, adultery with the plaintiff. The declaration is met with a general demurrer, and the question made under it is whether the innuendoes are justified or warranted by the words of the writing. An innuendo is merely explanatory of what is already set forth. It does not add to, enlarge, nor change the sense of the words charged. It is used merely to set forth the meaning of words used by the defendant, and to convey the meaning in the sense in which the plaintiff alleges the defendant used them. It is an averment of the meaning of the alleged libelous words. It cannot enlarge nor point the effect...
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Colbert v. Journal Pub. Co.
...It has been held that any words which tended to lower the plaintiff in the estimation of his friends are libelous per se. Jones v. Roberts, 73 Vt. 201, 50 Atl. 1071. We, therefore, do not consider that the trial court was in error in treating the publication as one libelous per se. The seco......
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Westropp v. E.W. Scripps Co.
...25 R.I. 117, 54 A. 1061; Sanford v. Rowley, 93 Mich. 119, 52 N.W. 1119; Morrison v. Smith, 177 N.Y. 366, 69 N.E. 725; and Jones v. Roberts, 73 Vt. 201, 50 A. 1071. In case of Sanford v. Rowley, supra, it was held by the court that the province of the innuendo is to explain language of doubt......
- Atherton v. Vill. of Essex Junction
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Longey v. Slator, 23
...of the construction which is given it in an innuendo it is proper, on demurrer, to reject the innuendo as surplusage. Jones v. Roberts, 73 Vt. 201, 203, 50 A. 1071. A demurrer is either to the whole, or to a part of a declaration. If a declaration contains several counts, only one of which ......