Richmond v. Post

• Decision Date: 26 October 1897
• Citation: 72 N.W. 704,69 Minn. 457
• Parties: RICHMOND v POST.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

69 Minn. 457

72 N.W. 704

RICHMONDvPOST.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Oct. 26, 1897.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

1. When considering the sufficiency of the allegations in complaints, a distinction has long been recognized between actions for libel and for slander. Words, when committed to writing, and published, are considered as libelous, which, if only spoken, would not subject the person speaking to any action.

2. Gen. St. 1894, § 5257,-on the subject of pleading in actions for defamation,-merely dispenses with the inducement to show the application of the language used to the plaintiff. It does not dispense with the necessity of averment of extrinsic facts to show the meaning of ambiguous language, and what it was understood to mean. If the words have the slanderous meaning alleged, not by their own intrinsic force, but by reason of some extraneous fact, this fact must be alleged in the complaint in a traversable form with a proper colloquium, to wit, the averment that the words in question were spoken of, concerning, or with reference to, such fact, whatever it is, which give to words otherwise indifferent or ambiguous the particular defamatory meaning attributed to them.

3. Held, in the case at bar, that under these rules the complaint herein failed to state a cause of action.

Appeal from district court, Ottertail county; L. L. Baxter, Judge.

Action by Catherine H. Richmond against John Post. Verdict for plaintiff. From an order denying a new trial, defendant appeals. Reversed.

C. J. Gunderson, for appellant.

E. E. Corliss, for respondent.

COLLINS, J.

Action for slander, in which plaintiff secured a verdict. Defendant appeals from an order denying his motion for a new trial. The primary question arises out of an objection made by defendant's counsel to the reception of any evidence under the complaint upon the ground that it failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, the objection being overruled by the trial court. The plaintiff attempted to set forth four distinct causes of action in the complaint, but at the trial no testimony was offered except as to one. Certainly, if this cause of action was insufficiently pleaded, the allegations of the complaint respecting the others were wholly inadequate. As to the cause of action concerning which evidence was offered and received, the complaint, after setting out that plaintiff was a married woman, having one son; that for two years prior thereto she had been engaged in the business of keeping an hotel in a certain village; that she had maintained a good reputation for the hotel and for her business; that she had always conducted herself properly and respectably; and that defendant was, and for said two years had been, a business man in said village, of great wealth and influence,-alleged “that [defendant] during the month of December, 1895, at the store of the defendant, in Parker's Prairie, in the presence and hearing of one Harry Tombes, spoke of and concerning the plaintiff the following words: ‘I am going to build an addition to my store. I am going to get out stone, and put a good foundation under it, and when I get it done I am going to paint it red, and run opposition to Mrs. Richmond and Dr. Henderson. If they can make money dishonestly, I have the same right,’-thereby meaning and being understood by the said Harry Tombes to mean that the plaintiff was keeping a house of prostitution at her said hotel.” It was also averred that said words were false and untrue. In passing upon the sufficiency of the above-quoted allegation, it must be remembered that a distinction has long been recognized between...