Washington Post Co v. Chaloner
Decision Date | 02 June 1919 |
Docket Number | No. 316,316 |
Citation | 63 L.Ed. 987,250 U.S. 290,39 S.Ct. 448 |
Parties | WASHINGTON POST CO. v. CHALONER |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Wilton J. Lambert, Joseph W. Bailey, and Rudolph H. Yeatman, all of Washington, D. C., for petitioner.
Messrs. E. F. Colladay, of Washington, D. C., and Sidney J. Dudley, of Hampton, Va., for respondent.
Saturday, April 3, 1909, the Washington Post, a daily newspaper of wide circulation published by petitioner, contained the following item:
Claiming damages on account of shame, infamy, and disgrace inflicted, respondent brought an action against the publishing company in the Supreme Court, District of Co lumbia. He alleged:
'The said defendant, meaning and intending * * * to charge the plaintiff with the crime of murder in the killing of one John Gillard, when on the contrary the fact was, as defendant well knew, that while the plaintiff was engaged in a most laudable effort to prevent the said Gillard from murdering his wife, * * * the said Gillard was in fact killed by accidental explosion of a pistol,' and 'contriving and intending to deprive the plaintiff of his said good name, credit, and reputation, and to bring him into scandal and disrepute among his friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, * * * falsely and maliciously composed and published and caused to be composed and published of and concerning the plaintiff in a certain newspaper,' etc., the above-quoted item.
Upon respondent's request the trial court charged:
'The jury are instructed that the words contained in the publication sued on by the plaintiff herein imply that the crime of murder has been committed by the plaintiff and are actionable per se.'
It further said to them:
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...is the duty of the court to determine if a communication is capable of bearing a defamatory meaning. Washington Post Co. v. Chaloner, 250 U.S. 290, 293, 39 S.Ct. 448, 63 L.Ed. 987 (1919); Commercial Publishing Co. v. Smith, (6 Cir.), 149 Fed. 704, 706-707 (1907); Van Lonkhuyzen v. Daily New......
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