Peck v. Wakefield Item Co.

• Decision Date: 28 October 1932
• Citation: 280 Mass. 451,183 N.E. 70
• Parties: PECK v. WAKEFIELD ITEM CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

280 Mass. 451

183 N.E. 70

PECK

v.WAKEFIELD ITEM CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

Oct. 28, 1932.

Appeal from Superior Court, Essex County; Edward T. Broadhurst, Judge.

Action by Harry F. Peck against the Wakefield Item Company. From the order sustaining a demurrer as to all counts of declaration, plaintiff appeals.

Affirmed in part, and reversed in part.

A. L. Stinson, of Boston, for appellant.

Hamilton, Eaton & Blakemore, of Boston, for appellee.

FIELD, J.

This is an action of tort for libel. The declaration is in five counts. The defendant demurred generally to the declaration and each count thereof and also to the declaration on the specific grounds that the matters relied on by the plaintiff are not libelous and ‘constitute nothing more than reasonable comment in respect of a candidate for public office in the town of Wakefield and report of matters of local interest,’ by the defendant as publisher of a newspaper. An order was entered sustaining the demurrer as to all counts and the plaintiff appealed therefrom without, so far as appears, having asked leave to amend his declaration.

The case is before us properly on the appeal from the order sustaining the demurrer. G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 231, § 96; Cheraska v. Ohanasian, 259 Mass. 341, 344, 345, 156 N. E. 715, 52 A. L. R. 1149;Morrill v. Crawford, 278 Mass. 250, 252, 179 N. E. 609.

Each count of the declaration alleges that the plaintiff was a citizen of the town of Wakefield, and that there was published in the Wakefield Daily Item, a newspaper owned by the defendant, ‘a false and malicious libel,’ a copy of which is annexed thereto.

The counts do not ‘allege that the words * * * complained of were used in a defamatory sense, specifying such defamatory sense’ (G. L. [Ter. Ed.] c. 231, § 147, form 18, Instruction), or set out facts ‘which show that in consequence of the circumstances attending their publication the words were intended to convey or would or could be understood to convey a derogatory meaning not on their face.’ Colby Haberdashers, Inc., v. Bradstreet Co., 267 Mass. 166, 170, 166 N. E. 550, 551. The primary question for determination, therefore, is whether ‘the words themselves, taken in their natural sense, and without a forced or strained construction’ are defamatory. Thomas v. Blasdale, 147 Mass. 438, 439, 18 N. E. 214. See Twombly v. Monroe, 136 Mass. 464, 468;Boynton v. Shaw Stocking Co., 146 Mass. 219, 221, 15 N. E. 507;Robinson v. Coulter, 215 Mass. 566, 570, 102 N. E. 938;Morrill v. Crawford, 278 Mass. 250, 254, 179 N. E. 609.

Embodied in various articles alleged to have been published in the defendant's newspaper are statements, sometimes contained in more than one article and appearing in various forms, that the plaintiff was a candidate for seven offices at the last town election; that in recent years he has been a plaintiff in many legal proceedings; that since his mother's death his sister, Mrs. Wyman, ‘had been involved in much litigation over the estate as the result of legal actions' brought by the plaintiff; that his petition to have the administrator of that estate removed was denied; that the plaintiff's sister died suddenly; that the plaintiff was her only heir at law and was entirely ‘cut off’ by her will; that he protected the allowance of the will, sought to have jury issues framed on the question of this allowance and appealed from the appointment of a special administrator of his sister's estate; that it was ‘stated at the court house’ that the allowance of her will would be ‘bitterly contested’; that the plaintiff brought an action for libel against the defendant for $20,000 damages for statements-not set out in the present declaration-concerning his campaign for town offices, and that ‘another attempt’ by the plaintiff ‘to institute additional criminal libel proceedings' against the members of the staff of the defendant's newspaper for publishing the story that his sister had died suddenly and ‘cut him off in her will,’ was ‘turned down’ by the assistant district attorney who told the plaintiff ‘there was nothing criminally libellous in the publications and advised * * * [him] that the county would have nothing to do with it.’ An article dealing specially with the plaintiff's previous civil action for libel contained portions of the declaration therein, including allegations that ‘by reason of the publication of said libel * * * [the plaintiff] was greatly injured in his character and reputation in the community and was discredited in his good name among his fellow citizens and in his candidacy for office that he suffered public humiliation and disgrace and that he suffered such mental anguish as a result of said publication that he was made ill and was obliged to expend and did expend large sums of money for medicine and medical attendance and was for a long time unable to follow his accustomed occupation, all to his damage.’

These matters taken in their natural sense are not defamatory. They do not, in themselves, expose the plaintiff to public hatred, ridicule or contempt, or tend to hurt his standing with a considerable and respectable class in the community. See Twombly v. Monroe, 136 Mass. 464, 468;Merrill v. Post Publishing Co., 197 Mass. 185, 190, 191, 83 N. E. 419;Craig v. Proctor, 229 Mass. 339, 340, 341, 118 N. E. 647;Peck v. Tribune Co., 214 U. S. 185, 29 S. Ct. 554, 53 L. Ed. 960, 16 Ann. Cas. 1075. Statements that the plaintiff has been a candidate for numerous offices and that he has initiated, or attempted to initiate, many legal proceedings, with specific references to some of them, without more, are not in ordinary circumstances libelous. These things he had a legal right to do, and properly might do. See Homer v. Engelhardt, 117 Mass. 539, 540. The description of the legal proceedings alleged to have been begun, or attempted, by the plaintiff, including the extracts from a declaration in one of them charging that he suffered in reputation, mind and body, and financially from an alleged libel, and the statements that one case would be vigorously contested and that others were disposed of adversely to him, though couched in language colloquial rather than technical, and perhaps inelegant (see Hanna v. Singer, 97 Me. 128, 53 A. 991), cannot be regarded as defamatory in the absence, as here, of allegations specifying any defamatory sense in which they were used. See G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 231, § 147, form 18, Instruction; McCallum v. Lambie, 145 Mass. 234, 238, 13 N. E. 899. See, also, Cox v. Cooper, 9 L. R. Tep. 329. There is no fair implication that the proceedings instituted by the plaintiff were not proper for judicial consideration or that the matter of the criminal libel was not proper for submission to the district attorney. The established principle that reports of matters pending in court which have...