Plecker v. Knottnerus

• Decision Date: 09 March 1926
• Docket Number: 37172
• Citation: 207 N.W. 574,201 Iowa 550
• Parties: EMMA PLECKER, Appellee, v. R. T. KNOTTNERUS, Appellant
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

207 N.W. 574

201 Iowa 550

EMMA PLECKER, Appellee, v. R. T. KNOTTNERUS, Appellant

No. 37172

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

March 9, 1926

Appeal from Washington District Court.--CHARLES A. DEWEY, Judge.

ACTION for libel. From a judgment on a verdict for plaintiff, the defendant appeals.--Affirmed on condition; otherwise reversed.

Lloyd L. Duke, Charles J. Wilson, and Edmund D. Morrison, for appellant.

Livingston & Eicher, for appellee.

VERMILION J. DE GRAFF, C. J., and FAVILLE and ALBERT, JJ., concur.

OPINION

VERMILION, J.

The alleged libel consisted of an information, signed by the appellant, charging that the appellee was insane, and a fit subject for treatment in the hospital for the insane. It was alleged that the information was filed in the office of the clerk of the district court and published to the clerk and deputy clerk; that the charge was false and untrue, and was so filed and published maliciously and without probable cause, and for the purpose of injuring the plaintiff and to deprive her of credit and reputation and to cause it to be believed that she was insane.

The answer alleged in some detail that defendant consulted the county attorney concerning threats alleged to have been made by plaintiff against his wife, and was instructed by him to go to the clerk's office and sign a legal paper which the clerk would prepare for him; that he went to the clerk's office and informed the deputy clerk that he had been sent there by the county attorney to sign a paper to be there prepared; that the deputy clerk communicated with the county attorney by telephone, and then informed defendant that the paper she prepared was the one the county attorney had directed him to sign, and he thereupon signed the same without reading; that he informed the deputy clerk that he did not think plaintiff was insane and would not sign any papers so stating. He denied malice and alleged that the inquisition upon the information was held on the demand of the plaintiff for a hearing thereon.

I. The court below, in the instructions to the jury, defined libel in the language of the statute, and instructed that the publication of a libel without justification, privilege, or lawful excuse was presumed to be malicious, and damage to the person libeled was presumed, and that, as the defendant did not claim as a defense matter constituting a legal justification, privilege, or lawful excuse, the verdict must be for the plaintiff in some amount; and, as to the matters set up in the answer, instructed that they did not constitute a defense, but that, if they were found to be true, they should be considered in mitigation of damages.

The answer, in effect, if not directly, admitted the signing and filing of the information--the writing and publication of the alleged libel. It did not in terms plead privilege, nor did the allegations of fact amount to a plea of privilege. There was no allegation in the answer nor claim in the proof that the information was signed and filed in the honest belief that the charge was true. In Comfort v. Young, 100 Iowa 627, 69 N.W. 1032, we said of a charge of libel based on an information charging that the plaintiff was insane:

"Persons have the undisputed right to file such informations as the one referred to, when made in good faith, and in the honest belief that the statements therein made are true. But one cannot use such instrumentalities for the express purpose of * * * indulging his passions, without making himself answerable to the law."

See, also, Hulbert v. New Nonpareil Co., 111 Iowa 490, 82 N.W. 928.

There was no plea of justification, or that the charge was true. In both pleading and proof it was, in effect, admitted that the appellee was not insane, and that appellant did not believe she was. She was discharged on the hearing before the commissioners.

The substance of the answer, in addition to the denial of malice, was that appellant signed and filed the information without ascertaining its contents, and on the advice of counsel.

There was no claim, either in the pleadings or proof, that appellant ever attempted to dismiss the charge, or to withdraw the information; and it appeared without dispute that he appeared, in response to a notice of the date set for the hearing before the commissioners, and testified in support of the charge. There was clearly a recognition and adoption of the libel by appellant as emanating from him. Dawson v. Holt, 79 Tenn. 583, 11 Lea 583 (47 Am. Rep. 312); Croasdale v. Bright, 6 Houst. (Del.) 52; 37 Corpus Juris 13.

With the information on file in the clerk's office, the appellee, as she had a perfect right to do, demanded a hearing. When appellant was called, and testified in support of the information filed by him, it would be a strange doctrine, indeed, that...