Loker v. Campbell

• Decision Date: 02 March 1895
• Citation: Loker v. Campbell, 163 Mass. 242, 39 N.E. 1038 (Mass. 1895)
• Parties: LOKER v. CAMPBELL et al.
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

163 Mass. 242

39 N.E. 1038

LOKER v. CAMPBELL et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

March 2, 1895

After the pleadings were read, the defendants requested the court to rule that the publication complained of was not actionable. The court refused the request, and ruled that the article was not libelous in charging the plaintiff with furnishing insufficient food, and that he would submit the case to the jury, to try whether the article complained of was fairly to be understood as charging the plaintiff with cruel treatment of his cows by unnecessarily failing to provide them with sufficient shelter or protection from the weather, and the further question whether said libel also referred to and charged cruel treatment by failing to furnish sufficient shelter during the winter preceding the date of the libel; to which refusal to rule, and the ruling made, the defendants excepted. Under the defendants' plea of justification they introduced evidence that upon the day when the article complained of was published there were large cracks in the boarding of the barn. The plaintiff, in rebuttal, offered testimony that the cracks in the barn prior to the date of the publication, from early fall to the 1st day of March were covered up with hay, so that the wind and cold did not penetrate the barn. To the admission of this evidence the defendants objected. The court overruled their objection, and admitted the evidence, instructing the jury that such evidence would not be competent unless they found that the libel covered the period previous to the publication of the article, and to this ruling the defendants also excepted. Witnesses for the defendants testified that on the date of the libel they visited the barn, and the barn was cold. The plaintiff, in rebuttal, was allowed, against the objection of the defendants, to ask certain witnesses who had visited and made an examination of said barn on and about the date of the publication, the following question: "State whether or not the barn was cold or warm." Each of said witnesses answered that it was warm. To the admission of these questions, and the answers given thereto, the defendants also excepted.

The publication complained of was as follows: "The Evening Star--Lowell, Mass., Thursday March 23, 1893. Brutal Treatment of Cows. This morning a Star Reporter took a drive out to Chelmsford, to see some cattle with Agent Drury, of the Humane Society. They went out past the poor farm, and stopped at the place of Mr. Locus, who keeps, or tries to keep, ten head of cattle and four horses in a barn that looks like a hencoop, for there is really as much space between the boards as the boards are wide. It is a wonder...