New York Soc. for the Suppression of Vice v. Macfadden Publ'ns, Inc.

• Decision Date: 22 November 1932
• Citation: 260 N.Y. 167,183 N.E. 284
• Parties: NEW YORK SOC. FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE v. MacFADDEN PUBLICATIONS, Inc., et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

260 N.Y. 167

183 N.E. 284

NEW YORK SOC. FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE

v.MacFADDEN PUBLICATIONS, Inc., et al.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Nov. 22, 1932.

Action by the New York Society for the Supression of Vice against the MacFadden Publications, Inc., and another. Judgment of the Supreme Court, Trial Term, in favor of plaintiff for $10,000, after trial before court without a jury by stipulation, was affirmed by Appellate Division (235 App. Div. 678, 255 N. Y. S. 904), and defendants appeal.

Affirmed.

See, also, 133 Misc. 686, 233 N. Y. S. 273.

Appeal from Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First department.

Joseph Schultz, Lewis F. Glaser, and Aaron Frank, all of New York City, for appellants.

Martin Conboy and David Asch, both of New York City, for respondent.

HUBBS, J.

The plaintiff is a domestic corporation organized under an act of the Legislature (Laws 1873, c. 527) to enforce ‘the laws for the suppression of the trade in and circulation of obscene literature * * * and articles of indecent and immoral use.’ The act authorized it to take and hold real and personal property. It is dependent upon voluntary contributions for its support.

The defendant corporation, MacFadden Publications, Inc., is the publisher of the newspaper, the New York Evening Graphic, and the individual defendant is the president of that corporation in personal charge and control. Articles were published in that paper which charged the plaintiff with crimes and highly improper and reprehensible conduct. The articles were libelous upon their face.

In this action to recover a judgment for damages against the defendants growing out of the publication of these articles, the trial court directed a judgment for the plaintiff for $10,000, and stated that the articles are libelous, false, and defamatory and ‘such that they cannot help but have been injurious, damaging to the plaintiff in its financial support.’ The evidence fully justified the statement of the learned trial justice.

It is earnestly insisted by appellants that as ‘plaintiff is a corporation, not engaged in an enterprise for profit or pecuniary gain; and since it failed to allege and prove special damage, it could not maintain an action for libel.’

It is clearly settled in this jurisdiction by controlling authority that a corporation may maintain an action for libel without proof of special damage in case a false publication ‘is defamatory and injuriously and directly affects its credit or the management of its business and necessarily causes pecuniary loss.’

‘The same rule is applicable to a corporation as to individuals. Where the latter may recover without proof of special damage, a corporation may also.’ First Nat. Bank of Waverly v. Winters, 225 N. Y. 47, 52,121 N. E. 459, 460;Reporters' Ass'n of America v. Sun Printing & Publishing Ass'n, 186 N. Y. 437, 79 N. E. 710.

The appellants, while recognizing the general principle enunciated in those cases, contend that it has no application under the facts in this case, the argument being that the principle applies only to corporations engaged in business for pecuniary gain, and as plaintiff is not such a corporation, and is not engaged in a commercial enterprise for profit, no presumption of actual damage exists, and to justify a recovery, special damage should have been alleged and proved.

No such differentiation is made in the opinions in those cases between business corporations, so called, and nonbusiness corporations.

Corporations...