Wildee v. McKee

• Decision Date: 04 January 1886
• Citation: Wildee v. McKee, 111 Pa. 335, 2 A. 108 (Pa. 1886)
• Parties: Wildee v. McKee et al
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

2 A. 108

111 Pa. 335

Wildee v. McKee et al

No.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

January 4, 1886

Argued November 11, 1885

Error to the Court of Common PleasNo. 1 of Allegheny county: Of October and November Term, No. 183.

This action was brought by John Wildee against Alexander McC.Milligan, John A. McKee, James R. W. Sloane, and David B Wilson, in which the defendants were summoned to answer a plea of trespass on the case for conspiracy.The declaration is against A. M. Milligan, J. A. McKee, J. R. W. Sloane, and D. B. Wilson, as having conspired with G. M. Elliot, Mary Miller, J. H. Pickens, and Duncan Echols, in the Commonwealth of Alabama; J. M. Faris, in the Commonwealth of Illinois; and David B. Gregg, in the Commonwealth of New York; and others to the plaintiff known and unknown to defame with the intent or for the purpose of injuring him in his good name and in his business and profession of teaching, and to cause it to be suspected and believed that the plaintiff was chargeable with insanity and monomania on the subject of adultery and whoredom, bad character, disobedience to employers, and libelling, and also for actually injuring him in his reputation and business and profession of teaching, in pursuance and execution of their conspiracy.The declaration contained seven counts, in the first of which is set forth the conspiracy to defame; in the second and third counts, the charge or imputation of insanity and monomania on the subject of adultery and whoredom; in the fourth count the charge of bad character; in the fifth count that of disobedience to employers; and in the sixth and seventh counts, the charge of libelling.

In the sixth count the plaintiff charges that the defendants are guilty of slander, in that he printed and disseminated a paper, in which certain persons have been scandalized.

The defendants demurred to the declaration, and alleged that the declaration and the matters therein contained were not sufficient in law to maintain the action.They also specified nine causes for demurrer, in which they contend, inter alia that the declaration is improper and insufficient in form that it erroneously charges them jointly with speaking and publishing the alleged oral slander; that the words alleged to be slanderous are not actionable; that the innuendoes vitiate the declaration by enlarging, extending, and changing the meaning or sense of the words charged; and that the statement or specification of damages contained in the declaration is erroneous.The plaintiff joined in the demurrer.

The court sustained the demurrer, whereupon the plaintiff took this writ, assigning for error inter alia the judgment of the court in sustaining the demurrer.

Judgment reversed and a procedendo awarded.

SYLLABUS

Trespass on the case for conspiracy to defame and thereby injure another in his particular vocation or business may be maintained whenever in pursuance of such unlawful combination, means have been employed which tended to effectuate and to a greater or less extent accomplished the object of the conspirator.

All matters recited in the declaration by way of inducement or charged therein to have been done or committed by the defendant so far as they are not wholly irrelevant must be accepted as true upon demurrer to the declaration by the defendant.

The plaintiff in his declaration averred that he was by profession a teacher, that the defendants conspired with their confederates to ruin him in his profession and in pursuance and in execution of their said conspiracy maliciously spoke and published of him in his profession as teacher, words (set forth at length with innuendoes) which imputed to him the want of integrity and capacity, mental and moral, followed by an averment of special damage:

Held, that it was error to sustain a demurrer to the sufficiency of the declaration.

A. M. Watson, (W. G. Crawford with him) for plaintiff in error.

A. M. Brown, (R. E. Stewart with him) for defendants in error.

Before Mercur, C. J., Gordon, Paxson, Trunkey, Sterrett, Green and Clark, JJ. Mr. Justice Sterrett delivered the opinion of the court.

OPINION

Mr. Sterrett, Justice

It cannot be doubted that trespass on the case for conspiracy to defame and thereby injure another in his particular avocation or business may be maintained whenever, in pursuance of such unlawful combination, means have been employed which tended to effectuate and, to a greater or less extent, accomplished the object of the conspirators: Mott v. Danforth, 6 Watts, 304-6;Haldeman v. Martin, 10 Barr., 369;Hood v. Palm., 8 Id., 237-9.In...