Morehead v. Jones
| Citation | 41 Ky. 210 |
| Parties | Morehead <I>vs</I> Jones. |
| Decision Date | 25 December 1841 |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Kentucky |
THIS is an action for a libel brought by Morehead against Jones, in which a verdict of one cent in damages was found for the plaintiff, and judgment rendered thereon, and he has brought the case to this Court. The action was for certain paragraphs contained in a pamphlet alledged to have been composed, printed and published by the defendant, of and concerning the plaintiff, charging him with perjury and an attempt at bribery, and subornation of perjury. The defendant pleaded justification. On the trial the plaintiff read to the jury, from the printed pamphlet, such of the paragraphs as was set forth and charged in his declaration as libelous. The defendant was permitted to read to the jury, from the same pamphlet, certain paragraphs immediately preceding and succeeding those charged in the declaration to be libelous, and read by the plaintiff to the jury as such, showing that the pamphlet was composed and published in answer to a letter previously written and published by the plaintiff, in which it is said he ruthlessly assailed the character of the defendant, and also referring to his informant as to the charge of perjury, as a man of character and truth, standing upon terms of intimacy with the plaintiff, and not likely to make a statement unfounded in truth, so injurious to his reputation. To the reading of these paragraphs by the defendant, the counsel for the plaintiff objected, which objection was overruled by the Court, and the only question presented in the record for the consideration of this Court is, was the opinion of the Circuit Court correct in permitting those parts of the pamphlet to be read as evidence to the jury.
We can perceive no good reason for excluding the evidence read; it was part of the same pamphlet which contained the libelous matter, and on the same subject, and was properly received as explanatory of the subject matter, occasion, motive, and intent of the publication. In the case of Hotchkiss vs Lathrop, 1st John. Rep. 286, the Court permitted a previous publication against a a third person, to which the defendant's publication was an answer, to be read to the jury, in mitigation of damages. And with the same object, in the case of Williams, alias A. Perkin vs Foulder, tried before Lord Kenyon in 1797, his lordship permitted the counsel for defendant to read passages from various scurrilous publications previously made by the plaintiff against reputable characters of the kingdom.
Without sanctioning the doctrine, to the extent that it was carried in those two opinions, and especially the latter, we cannot doubt that it was proper to allow passages to be read from the same pamphlet, explanatory of the subject, motive and inducement to the publication.
The defendant should be tried by what he has published and the whole of what he has published in the same pamphlet, on the same subject, and not by such passages as the plaintiff may select and dislocate from their context, and make the basis of his action. As the party whose confessions are relied on and proven, has a right to the proof of his whole confession, or in slander, after the plaintiff has proved a part of the words spoken by the defendant, the latter may extract from the witness all that was said at the same time on the same subject. So it would seem...
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