Pratt v. Pioneer Press Company

• Decision Date: 04 April 1884
• Citation: 20 N.W. 87,32 Minn. 217
• Parties: Daniel L. Pratt v. Pioneer Press Company
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

20 N.W. 87

32 Minn. 217

Daniel L. Pratt v. Pioneer Press Company

Supreme Court of Minnesota

April 4, 1884

Action for libel, brought in the district court for Hennepin county and tried before Lochren, J., and a jury. Plaintiff had a verdict for $ 5,000, and appeals from an order granting a new trial upon the ground that the damages awarded were excessive. The alleged libel will be found at length in the report of a decision of this court, in 30 Minn. 41, upon a former appeal in this action.

The court below, in granting a new trial, filed the following decision:

"The amount of damages awarded appears to me to be not only excessive, but so grossly out of proportion to any possible injury which the plaintiff can have sustained by means of the alleged libel, as to make it seem impossible that the verdict can have been the result of the dispassionate, unprejudiced judgment of the jury. The alleged libel did not charge the plaintiff with any public offence or moral delinquency, and had no tendency to expose him to hatred, ridicule or contempt. It did not even disparage his skill or capacity in his profession. At most it can only be regarded as charging a lack of care and vigilance, in a single instance, and respecting a matter the care of which does not, perhaps ordinarily devolve upon the attending physician; not resulting in any injury to the patient, but having a liability to have resulted in such injury had the matter not been attended to by others.

"Aside from the mere publication of the article, there was no evidence tending to show malice. There was no recklessness of statement; but it appeared that the article was published in good faith, representing the facts without exaggeration, as they appeared to defendant's reporter on a personal investigation; and so they appeared to the coroner, an experienced physician, who was acting in the matter in his official capacity, and in whose company, and with whose assistance, the reporter made his investigation. The evidence disproved the existence of any actual malice. It seems very near requiring a verdict for the defendant on the defence of justification, and would well have supported such a verdict.

"No special damages were alleged or proved; and the jury was instructed, as I think correctly, that if they found for the plaintiff, they could give him compensatory damages only, and exemplary or punitive damages should not be given. Five thousand dollars is a large sum, and should compensate for a very grievous injury. I cannot imagine how the plaintiff can have been damaged by this publication, and especially by anything false or unwarranted contained in it, in any sum at all approximating that amount.

"No cases were cited on the argument in which courts have set aside verdicts in actions for libel or slander, on the ground of excessive damages. And although I have made no extended search for precedents, I have made sufficient to convince me that such cases have been extremely rare. The question of damages in that class of actions has generally been surrendered by courts to what has been sometimes termed 'the despotic power of the jury.' But courts have generally asserted their power to set aside verdicts in such cases on the ground of excessive damages, if appearing to have been the result of passion or prejudice on the part of the jury. St. Martin v. Desnoyer, 1 Minn. 131 (156.) And an early case in the King's Bench is mentioned by Atkins, J., in Lord Townsend v. Dr. Hughes, 2 Mod. 150, 151, where a verdict in an action for slander was set aside by the court on the ground of excessive damages.

"Such power must exist in courts, to prevent the possibility of great injustice. It must be conceded that it should be exercised with great, perhaps extreme caution. Nevertheless its exercise becomes a matter of duty where the case demands it. In most actions for slander or libel the charge imputes some crime or vice, tending to degrade the plaintiff in the opinion of the community, or it has a tendency to bring the plaintiff into ridicule or contempt. Evidence of actual malice, or recklessness of statement from which such malice is inferable, has seldom been wanting; and there have been few such cases where the jury, if warranted in finding for the plaintiff, were not also warranted in giving exemplary or punitive damages in addition to compensatory damages. In such cases it would in general be impossible for a court to determine from the mere amount of damages that the jury has been actuated by passion or prejudice. But the case is free from that consideration.

"Impressed with the belief that the amount awarded by this verdict is so greatly in excess of any damages which the plaintiff can have sustained by reason of the alleged libel that it cannot be regarded as the result of dispassionate and unprejudiced judgment on the part of the jury, I cannot permit the verdict to stand without abdicating the power which courts have so often asserted in theory, and so seldom exercised in practice. Ordered, that the verdict in the action be set aside, and a new trial granted."

The appeal having been noticed for argument at the April term, 1884, the respondent, on the first day of the term, moved to strike the settled case from the record. The motion was denied, the following being filed April 4, 1884:

"By the Court. Until the return is sent to this court, the court below has, notwithstanding an appeal taken, jurisdiction to correct its record in a cause, or make and settle a 'case' or bill of exceptions."

Order affirmed.

Thomas Kneeland and Boardman & Ferguson, for appellant, cited 2 Addison on Torts, 648, §§ 151, 1164, 1391; Sedgwick on Damages, 630; 1 Graham & Waterman on New Trials, 426, 434, 451; 2 Id. 1138, 1151, 1153, 1175; Townshend on Libel and Slander, 541; Hicks v. Foster, 13 Barb. 663; Beaulieu v. Parsons, 2 Minn. 26, (37;) Maclean v. Scripps, 17 N.W. 815; Thompson v. Mussey, 3 Me. 305; Brown v. Evans, 17 F. 912; Shaw v. Boston & W. R. Co., 8 Gray 45; Johnson v. Hannahan, 3 Strob. 425; Swinnerton v. Stafford, 3 Taunt. 232; Duggan v. Cole, 2 Tex. 381; Barrett v. Rogers, 7 Mass. 297.

Babcock & Davis, for respondent.

OPINION

Berry, J.

This is an action for libel, in which a new trial was granted by the trial court upon the ground that the damages ($ 5,000) awarded to the plaintiff by the jury were excessive. The statute confers express authority upon the district court...