McBride v. Ledoux
| Decision Date | 04 January 1904 |
| Docket Number | 14,844 |
| Citation | 35 So. 615,111 La. 398 |
| Court | Louisiana Supreme Court |
| Parties | McBRIDE v. LEDOUX et al |
Appeal from Nineteenth Judicial District Court, Parish of St Martin; T. Don Foster, Judge.
Action by Pierre W. McBride against Angel Ledoux and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.
Percy Thompson Ogden, John N. Ogden, and Edward Simon, for appellant.
Mouton & Simon, for appellees Mrs. Angel Ledoux and husband, Edmund Pellerin.
Martin & Voorhies, for appellees Mrs. Laurence Martin and husband Joseph Pellerin.
Statement of the Case.
Plaintiff appeals from a judgment of the district court in favor of all the defendants, based upon the verdict of a jury. The action was brought against Angel Ledoux and her husband, Edmund Pellerin, and against Laurence Martin and her husband, Joseph Pellerin, praying for a solidary judgment against them for damages sustained by reason of certain false and slanderous charges against plaintiff, which he alleges were maliciously originated and circulated by the wives of the said Edward and Joseph Pellerin. The husbands were charged with "having aided and assisted their wives in the utterance, publication and malicious circulation of the charges, well knowing at the time that they were false and malicious, and calculated to inflict great injury upon him."
The petition contained the usual allegations made in actions of this character.
Plaintiff averred that he was engaged to be married to a near relative of the defendants, with whom they were not on friendly terms, and disliked, and they circulated the said slanderous charges against him in order to ruin his character and reputation, and to place an obstacle in the way of his marriage.
Laurence Martin and her husband answered. They pleaded the general issue. They denied having ever originated, propagated, or repeated the alleged slanderous words, rumors, or utterances set forth in plaintiff's petition, or even any in the least injurious to or prejudicial to his person or character. They averred that some similar rumors or statements were made and uttered to respondents by others, not publicly nor maliciously, but rather in a private manner; that they at no time repeated, spread, or even gave credence to same, but simply made inquiry from persons whom they honesty believed were interested as to whether or not such rumors or statements were in fact being uttered or circulated by others, but not in the least asserting any such matters or rumors to be true, nor even insinuating a willingness to believe anything of the sort.
Angel Ledoux and her husband made a similar defense. Edmund and Joseph Pellerin are brothers. They are brothers of the half blood of the young lady to whom plaintiff was engaged to be married, and whom defendants say in their brief that he has since married.
The testimony given by Mrs. Edmund Pellerin to the effect that the statements of which plaintiff complains were made to her by another person as a matter of fact has not been disproved. The complaint, therefore, that she originated the charge made against the plaintiff, fails. Mrs. Edmund Pellerin communicated what she had heard to Mrs. Paul Broussard, a married sister of the young lady to whom plaintiff was engaged, for the purpose, as she told her, of having it communicated by her to her mother, Mrs. Adolphe Pellerin then a widow. The statements made in regard to the plaintiff were of the most serious character. These reports finally reached the young lady herself, but the testimony does not disclose from whom she first heard them. She refers to a conversation at Breaux's Bridge with a person by the name of Bulliard, in which he spoke of them to her, but she had evidently been told of them before that conversation. The presumption is that she had heard of them from her mother, Mrs. Adolphe Pellerin, or her sister, Mrs. Paul Broussard, while on a visit to Breaux's Bridge, where they lived. Her usual residence was at Crowley, La., in the family of Auguste Ledoux, who had married one of her sisters. On her return to Crowley she informed her brother-in-law what she had been told, and he immediately reported the same to the plaintiff. The latter and Auguste Ledoux went immediately to Breaux's Bridge to trace the reports to their origin. They called upon Mrs. Edmund Pellerin, and also upon her sister, Mrs. Joseph Pellerin. The former told them that reports against plaintiff were made to her by a man who occupied the same seat with her in the car as she was going from Lafayette to Jennings on a visit to her mother. She had never met him before, and in the course of the conversation with her on that occasion he asked her name, and whether she was not related to the young lady who was engaged to the plaintiff, and, receiving an affirmative reply, he said he was sorry, and in that connection made to...
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