Parmelee v. Hearst Pub. Co.
| Decision Date | 30 June 1950 |
| Docket Number | Gen. No. 45105 |
| Citation | 341 Ill.App. 339,93 N.E.2d 512 |
| Parties | PARMELEE v. HEARST PUB. CO., Inc. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Elmer Gertz, Chicago, for appellant.
Poppenhusen, Johnston, Thompson & Raymond, Chicago, Floyd E. Thompson, Roger W. Barrett, Chicago, of counsel, for appellee.
This is a libel action based on an article written by Westbrook Pegler and published by defendant in The Chicago Herald-American. Counts two and three in the original complaint were stricken on defendant's motion. The amended complaint of two counts was filed November 9, 1949. The amended count two was dismissed on defendant's motion, plaintiff elected to stand, and judgment was entered for defendant, on count two and plaintiff has appealed.
Defendant's motion admitted the facts hereinafter set forth. Plaintiff was on or before June 2, 1948 a resident of Chicago, Illinois employed as an economist by the Railroad Retirement Board. He was a reputable author, lecturer and authority in economics and other social sciences, and a member of national and international professional scientific organizations. He was not a Communist nor adherent to the Communist Party, had not been convicted of any crime, had not engaged in or advocated depravity, and had not written any depraved books. Defendant at the time was publisher of The Chicago Herald-American circulated in Chicago, throughout Illinois, and in other cities and states, and also published other newspapers of large circulation in other large cities, in the United States.
On or about June 2, 1948 there were in Cook County numerous members of the Communist Party. The common belief in Cook County and elsewhere was that Communists and their fellow-travelers' were not loyal citizens of the United States but were seeking unlawfully by force to overthrow the constitutional government of, and impose Communism on, the United States. This common belief is expressed in Federal and Illinois legislation enacted just before, during, and since the entry of the United States in World War II. Regulations promulgated under the legislation have given further expression to the common belief. The result was that on or about June 2, 1948, the name or designation Communist, Communist sympathizer, etc., tended to injure the reputation of any person to whom it was applied and to expose that person to public suspicion, hatred, contempt, and financial injury.
Plaintiff alleged that notwithstanding that factual background defendant, with the malicious intention of harming him in his profession, employment, and reputation, published a false defamatory article by Pegler; that the article was intended to mean and was reasonably understood by the readers to mean that he was a Communist, etc., had been arrested for crime, and was engaged in writing and distributing depraved books and advocating depraved practices; and that as a result of the article, his reputation for patriotism had been impugned, his professional standing jeopardized, his employment made insecure, his name, reputation, and credit injured, his income lessened, and that he was required to incur obligations for legal fees and expenses.
The motion to dismiss asserted that there was a failure to state a cause of action for words actionable per se or actionable per quod; no allegation showing special damages, financial injury, or malice, nor that the words were written of plaintiff in his business or profession, nor that any statement was made with intent to injure plaintiff's name or reputation or to induce public hatred of him; and that the article dealt with a matter of public interest and was fair comment and criticism.
In Dilling v. Illinois Publishing Co., 340 Ill.App. 303, 91 N.E.2d 635, recently decided by this Court, several general rules of law pertaining to libel were set forth with authorities: The article is to be read as a whole and the words given their natural and obvious meaning. Where the words are not ambiguous, the question is for the Court whether the words are capable of conveying the meaning attributed to them by plaintiff. The words are to receive an innocent construction if it can be reasonably given them. Other pertinent rules are that where the plaintiff alleges that the words in the article are libelous per se, the innuendo in the complaint must be considered as surplusage, Schmisseur v. Kreilich, 92 Ill. 347, and is not admitted by a motion to dismiss. Campbell v. Morris, 224 Ill.App. 569.
The article is under Pegler's name with the date line 'Washington, June 2----.' It is divided by asterisks and triple spacings into three parts. The first part has eight, the second six, and the third three, paragraphs. The first two paragraphs of the first part tell of the scandal, humiliation, and reproach visited upon a government employee whose daughter had become a Communist. The third paragraph states that the parent worked in the Department of Commerce and that though he was blameless, the Department had freely given to the Soviet Government copies of all patents which it wanted at a small cost. It then states that in this Department Henry Wallace 'planted' one March. It goes on to say that when Wallace was Secretary of Agriculture and later head of the Board of Economic Warfare, he provided two jobs for a 'nudist'. It then says that 'this one' wrote such disgusting books that he was 'pinched' for trying to import them into this country. In the same paragraph a sentence is added that if 'this were the only such creature' who could be found associating with Wallace or under his patronage in the government that might be an accident but that he wasn't the only one. The next paragraph implies that plaintiff was questionable on nasty grounds and compares him unfavorably with March who however 'did flop around in the clouds.' The last paragraph of this part probably includes plaintiff in the 'strange company' selected by Wallace.
The second part of the article states that the Dies Committee dug up all the information about 'wild people who wormed their way into the government * * *, including many of the most malignant Communists in the world, * * *.' The rest of this part has no relation to this nor, it seems, to the rest of the article. Finally the third and concluding part picks up the criticism of the Department of Commerce in the first part and broadens it to criticism of the United States post war patent policy with Germany and Russia and finally into a hope that 'bureaucrats' won't give away our 'atomic data.'
The question is whether count two, based on the article, states a cause of action in libel. This involves the question not whether the meaning ascribed to the words by plaintiff was libelous but whether the words used were capable of conveying the meaning which plaintiff ascribes to them. The article does not directly refer to plaintiff as a Communist, etc. Plaintiff argues that the article read as a whole is capable of conveying to an ordinarily reasonable reader the meaning that he is a Communist or a Communist sympathizer. We believe that no ordinarily reasonable reader could...
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