Reid v. Providence Journal Co.

• Decision Date: 08 June 1897
• Citation: 20 R.I. 120,37 A. 637
• Parties: REID et al. v. PROVIDENCE JOURNAL CO.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

37 A. 637

20 R.I. 120

REID et al.

v. PROVIDENCE JOURNAL CO.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 8, 1897.

Action by J. A. and R. A. Reid against the Providence Journal Company for libel. A demurrer to the petition was sustained.

Charles J. Arms and P. Henry Quinn, for plaintiffs.

Comstock & Gardner, for defendant.

TILLINGHAST, J. This is an action of trespass on the case for libel, and is based upon the publication by the defendant of the following item or article, viz.: "Thrice Burned. The Daniels & Cornell Block Again Visited by Fire. Damage Largely by Water, and Estimated at $70,000, Covered by insurance. At 10:15 o'clock last night R. A. Reid, of the printer's firm of J. A. & R. A. Reid, while working at his desk on the top floor of the tall Daniels & Cornell Building on Customhouse street, discovered smoke and flame issuing from the composing room in the rear of the office, and which was raging near the boiler. He immediately descended to the street, and notified Patrolman Hartwell, who sounded an alarm from box 146 on the pole located at Turk's Head. The fiery element completely invaded the entire fifth floor, which was all occupied by the Messrs. Reid, who claim complete loss from fire and water. They were insured for $55,000. The fire extended from this room to the roof, the northwest portion of which was destroyed. The fire is the third to have occurred in this building in the past thirteen years. It was completely destroyed in the great fire of September, 1877, and all but ruined on Sunday evening, February 19, 1888. Every fire in this building has started on the upper floor, and twice in Reid's printing establishment" By way of explanation of this publication, the plaintiffs add the following innuendo: "Meaning and intending to convey the impression and belief that said plaintiffs intended to injure and de fraud their insurers of $55,000, claimed by them in consequence of the fire aforesaid; and also meaning to cause it to be suspected and believed that the said plaintiffs knew of the origin of said fire of May 22, 1890, and were criminally responsible for it; and also to cause it to be suspected and believed that the other fires above mentioned were of incendiary origin, and that the fire of May 22, 1890, was also incendiary, and that said fires were set or procured to be set by the said plaintiffs." The defendant demurs to the declaration on the grounds (1) that the article, unexplained by the innuendo, is not libelous; and (2) that the innuendo attributes to the article a meaning which it is incapable of bearing.

We think the demurrer should be sustained. The article in question contains no defamatory language, nor do we think it is capable of the meaning attributed to it in the innuendo. It is simply a statement of an occurrence which was a proper subject of public notice and comment, and does not in any way reflect upon the character of the plaintiffs. It not only fails to charge or even insinuate that the fire was of incendiary origin, but, on the contrary, by alleging that one of the plaintiffs, while working at his desk, first discovered smoke and flame issuing from the composing room in the rear of the office, and that the fire was raging near the boiler, and also that he Immediately caused an alarm to be sounded, the natural inference to be drawn therefrom is that the fire was accidental, and originated in the boiler room. The only portion of the article which by any possibility could be tortured into a charge that the plaintiffs were in some way criminally responsible for the fire referred to is the last sentence thereof. But language is not to be forced or tortured in libel cases in order to make it actionable. It is to be taken in its plain and ordinary sense. And, although greater liberality is exercised in the case of words when they are spoken than when they are contained in written or printed articles (Cooley, Torts [2d. Ed.] 239), yet in both cases the person must be presumed to have used them in their ordinary import in the community in which they are uttered or published (Edsall v. Brooks, 3 Rob. [N. Y.] 295). In Roberts v. Camden, 9 East, 93, the court say: "Words are now construed by courts, as they always ought to have been, in the plain and popular sense in which the rest of the world naturally understand them." See Townsh. Sland. & L. (3d Ed.) 178, and cases cited; Demarest v. Haring, 6 Cow. 76-87; Fitzgerald v. Robinson, 112 Mass. 371. The fact that supersensitive persons, with morbid imaginations, may be able, by reading between the lines of an article, to discover some defamatory meaning therein, is not sufficient to make it libelous. In other words, if the language is not reasonably capable of convpying to the ordinary mind the defamatory meaning alleged in the innuendo, it is the province and duty of the court to so declare, and to deny the right to maintain an action thereon. Carter v. Andrews, 16 Pick. 1.

But plaintiffs' counsel contends that, even though the language complained of is not actionable per se, and is not made so by the innuendoes, yet it becomes actionable by reason of the allegation of special damage. We do not agree to so broad a statement of the law as pertaining to libel and slander; for,...