Weltmer v. Bishop

• Citation: 71 S.W. 167,171 Mo. 110
• Parties: WELTMER et al. v. BISHOP.
• Decision Date: 26 November 1902
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

71 S.W. 167

171 Mo. 110

WELTMER et al. v. BISHOP.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 1.

November 26, 1902.

LIBEL—ILLEGAL BUSINESS—MAGNETIC HEALING —EVIDENCE—BURDEN OF PROOF.

1. Plaintiffs, who were men without pretense of scientific learning, and who were possessed only of a limited education, were engaged in healing diseases by alleged magnetism. They advertised to cure all kinds of chronic diseases without the use of medicine or surgery, by magic, and by the exertion of the same powers that Christ exercised. Their business was conducted mostly by advertising and correspondence, and patients were treated and alleged cures effected while the patient was at a distance, by the latter's being directed to submit his mind to the healing influence at a particular hour designated in a letter, when such influence would be exercised by one of the plaintiffs; but on one occasion a witness testified she was cured in this manner when the healer was proved to have been on a vacation, and there was no person to exercise the alleged influence except his typewriter. Held, that plaintiffs' business was a fraud, and that mere evidence, in an action for libel thereon, that witnesses had been cured of diseases by plaintiffs' influence, did not authorize a submission of the legitimacy of such business to the jury.

2. Where plaintiffs alleged that their business of magnetic healing was legitimate and a benefit to the publc, the burden was on them, in a suit for libel thereon, to show a rational basis therefor.

Appeal from circuit court, Bates county; W. W. Graves, Judge.

Action by S. A. Weltmer and others against C. M. Bishop. From a judgment in favor of plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Reversed.

W. C. Scarritt and M. T. January, for appellant. Francisco & Clark and Scott & Bowker, for respondents.

VALLIANT, J.

Plaintiffs sue as partners in trade to recover damages for an alleged libel of their business. They recovered a judgment for $750, and the defendant appeals. The case comes to this court because a constitutional question is involved.

The petition alleges that the plaintiffs are engaged in the business of magnetic healing, and had been so engaged for more than two years at the city of Nevada, and that large numbers of people had been coming to them from abroad to be treated by the plaintiff for diseases; that defendant wrote and caused to be published in a newspaper an article in which the plaintiffs were called "miserable charlatans," and in which statements were made concerning their business which were false, libelous, and malicious. The article is set out in full in the petition, but, under the view we have taken of the case, we deem it unnecessary to copy it in this statement, or to say of it more than that if the plaintiffs' business was legitimate, and if the statements were false, and if the article referred to the plaintiffs, it was libelous. The answer admitted the authorship and publication; alleged the truth of the statements; that it was not intended to refer to plaintiffs in particular, but to a large class that were engaged in the business of so-called magnetic healing; that the business was a fraud practiced on the public; and that defendant deemed it his duty to expose the fraud, and wrote the article in good faith and without malice. The court, on motion of plaintiffs, struck out all of the answer except that part admitting the publication, and pleading its truth. Upon the trial the evidence both for plaintiffs and defendant showed as follows: The plaintiffs, who were men without the pretense of scientific learning, and who possessed only to a limited degree even the rudiments of education, were engaged in a business at Nevada which they called "Magnetic Healing." They employed for chief assistants three men who were also unlearned in any science, and of little common education, and in addition to these a large number of female typewriters. They advertised very extensively in the chief cities of the United States and in foreign countries. In their advertisements they professed to possess miraculous power to heal all diseases to which human beings were liable, without medicine and without surgery; that to them had been committed the startling revelation whereby all ailments are dispersed as if by magic; that they had cured patients thousands of miles away, and could cure thousands in an instant; that they exerted the same powers that Jesus Christ exerted to cure diseases 1900 years ago. By far the greater number of their patients were at a distance, and the only communication with them was by letter. These they proposed to cure, no matter what the disease, and though thousands of miles away, by a mysterious influence of the mind of the healer over that of the patient. The chief direction in the letter to the distant patient was that at a certain hour in the day he should dismiss all disturbing thoughts, and bring his mind into a passive condition to receive the influence from the mind of the healer, who at that same hour in Nevada would bring his mind to exert the mysterious influence desired. The business that the plaintiffs built up by these methods was indeed wonderful, in respect of its magnitude. They were making a thousand dollars a day. People suffering with sickness and disease came by hundreds to Nevada to receive the magic touch of these men, and many of them went away believing that they had been cured or benefited. But the great bulk of the business was through what they called their "absent treatment"; that is, by letter correspondence. Their patients of this kind numbered many thousands, and they were treated by the typewriters, who alone read the letters coming from the absent patients, and answered them. The answer to each was, in the main, a copy of a circular letter prepared by the plaintiffs, and furnished the typewriters for that purpose. One of the plaintiffs, who was the originator of the scheme, and the chief director of the business, explained that the process of this absent treatment was that, at the hour designated in the letter in which the patient was to make his mind passive to receive the healing influence, he (the healer) would bring the powers of his own mind to bear on that of the distant patient, and the beneficial result would follow. In this way many hundreds of men, women, and children in different parts of the world were treated at the same instant. When his attention was called to the fact that at a stated hour in Nevada, when the healer was exercising his mind to transmit its influence to the expectant patients in different parts of the world, that time would not correspond with the hour in distant and different localities, he gave no clear explanation of the point. It was also shown that, when he left the business and went to...