Estes v. Sterchi Bros. Stores Inc
| Decision Date | 20 February 1935 |
| Docket Number | No. 24152.,24152. |
| Citation | 179 S.E. 222,50 Ga.App. 619 |
| Parties | ESTES. v. STERCHI BROS. STORES, Inc., et al. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by Editorial Staff.
Error from Superior Court, Fulton County; John D. Humphries, Judge.
Petition by E. G. Estes against the Sterchi Brothers Stores, Incorporated, and others. To review a judgment sustaining a general demurrer to the petition, plaintiff brings error.
Affirmed.
Morris Macks, of Atlanta, for plaintiff in error.
Clifford Hendrix and Hendrix & Buchanan, all of Atlanta, for defendants in error.
Syllabus Opinion by the Court.
1. Words which are plain and unambiguous and do not impute a crime cannot, by innuendo, have their meaning enlarged and extended so as to impute a crime. Morris v. Evans, 22 Ga. App. 11, 95 S. E. 385. A writing which recites that a person owes a sum of money and "persists in retaining the money that is due" the writer, "in spite of" the writer's many appeals for "payment, " and which is transmitted to the employer of the alleged debtor, and which states that other employers have requested the writer to notify them before filing garnishments against their employees, as they are often able to persuade their employees to settle with the writer, in plain and unambiguous language charges the person about whom the words were uttered only with owing a debt, and does not, by the expression "retaining the money that is due" the writer, impute the crime of larceny or embezzlement of funds belonging to the writer of the letter, and therefore does not impute a crime, and cannot, by innuendo, have its meaning enlarged and extended as imputing a crime.
2. A mere written statement that a person who is not engaged in a vocation which requires credit fails and refuses to pay a debt, and which does not affect him in his business or profession, and which does not impute insolvency to him, but which is made to his employer solely for the purpose of urging the employer to induce the alleged debtor to make payment of the debt, is not libelous per se, and does not render the author of the statement liable without proof of special damage. Porak v. Sweitzer's, Inc., 87 Mont. 331, 287 P. 633; Bush v. McMann, 12 Coloa. App. 504, 55 P. 956; Stannard v. Wilcox & Gibbs Sewing Machine Co., 118 Md. 151, 84 A. 335, 42 L. R. A. (N. S.) 515, Ann. Cas. 1914B, 709; 36 C. J. 1170 § 44; 17 R. 0. L. 299.
3. A petition which alleges that the defendant wrote to the employer of the plaintiff that the...
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...v. Edge, 68 Ga.App. 314, 22 S.E.2d 738 (1942); Haggard v. Shaw, 100 Ga.App. 813, 112 S.E.2d 286 (1959); and Estes v. Sterchi Bros. Stores, 50 Ga.App. 619, 179 S.E. 222 (1935). These cases, however, appear to be "delinquent debtor cases" referred to in note 11, 9 Ga.Code Ann. § 105-701 (libe......
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