Thompson v. Lewiston Daily Sun Pub. Co.

• Decision Date: 04 January 1898
• Parties: THOMPSON v. LEWISTON DAILY SUN PUB. CO.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

39 A. 556

91 Me. 203

THOMPSON

v. LEWISTON DAILY SUN PUB. CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Jan. 4, 1898.

(Official.)

Exceptions from supreme judicial court, Kennebec county.

Action by Edgar L. Thompson against Lewiston Daily Sun Publishing Company. Demurrer to declaration overruled, and defendant excepts. Exceptions overruled.

H. M. Heath and C. L. Andrews, for plaintiff.

G. W. Heselton and L. T. Carleton, for defendant.

WHITEHOUSE, J. This is an action of libel for defamatory matter published in the newspaper of the defendant company concerning the plaintiff. The defendant filed a general demurrer to the declaration. The presiding judge overruled the demurrer, and the defendant brings the case to the law court on exceptions to this ruling.

The more material parts of the published article, comprising the special matter alleged to be libelous, with the innuendoes as they appear in the declaration, are as follows:

"The announcement in yesterday's Sun of the Thompsons' (meaning the plaintiff and his brother) arrest for the murder of J. Augustus Sawyer caused a surprise to many people in this section of the country, as many people supposed no solution would come. Words of praise were heard for the Sun's enterprise in ferreting out the mystery which has caused so much talk. A resident from near Monmouth remarked that the Sun had done a big thing for that place. 'Why,' said the gentleman, 'my folks were afraid, even to this day, to go out of doors alone nights for the fear of being molested.' * * * The Thompsons' (meaning the plaintiff and his brother J. Albert Thompson aforesaid) records (meaning their past conduct or actions) are not of a Sunday school order (meaning that their conduct in the past has not been in accordance with the rules of morality and virtue, but has been immoral and in violation of law). Edward Thompson (meaning the plaintiff), whose true name is Edgar Thompson, had lived an eventful life, and the authorities (meaning the prosecuting officers of Kennebec county aforesaid) have evidence which will not put him in an enviable light. It is said from other sources that Edward or Edgar Thompson (meaning the plaintiff) has a wife living (meaning that he, the plaintiff, had committed the crime of bigamy, and that a person who was then his wife, and from whom he has never been divorced, was then still alive, and that the said Helen M. Thompson, with whom he is now and was then living, is not and was not then his legal wife, but that he is and was then living with her unlawfully) in the West, who will probably be secured (meaning that she will be brought to Augusta) as a witness (meaning that she will be summoned to testify as to the character of the plaintiff at the trial of said plaintiff on the said charge of murder). 'Ed' Thompson (meaning the plaintiff) was divorced by his second wife (meaning the said Abbie E., his first wife, from whom he was divorced as aforesaid), and she is now living in Auburn."

In the colloquium of his declaration the plaintiff avers "that he is, and for a long time prior to December 20, A. D. 1895, had been, legally married to his wife, Helen M. Thompson, with whom he is now and for several years prior hereto has been living as his lawful wife in said town of Monmouth; that previous to such marriage he was married to one Abbie E. Merriman, and on the 16th day of November, previous to his marriage to said Helen M. Thompson, he was legally divorced from her, the said Abbie E. Thompson, and that she, the said Abbie E. Thompson, is now living in Auburn, in the county of Androscoggin and state of Maine; that he has never been married to any other person or persons than the said Abbie E., his first wife, and the said Helen M., his second wife; that he has never committed the atrocious crime of bigamy; that he, said plaintiff, was on the eighteenth day of December, A. D. 1895, arrested, and, in company with his brother, J. Albert Thompson, on the 20th day of December, A. D. 1895, arraigned before A. G. Andrews, Esq., judge of the municipal court of the city of Augusta, within and for said county of Kennebec, on a charge of murder of one J. Augustus Sawyer, and on the said preliminary hearing thereon was discharged as innocent thereof."

It is contended in behalf of the plaintiff that the words, "he has a wife living in the West," construed with reference to all the other averments in the...