Ray v. Citizen-News Co.

SHINN, J.,

pro

tem.

Appeal by plaintiff from a judgment in favor of defendant in an action for damages for alleged libel.

When the action came on for trial the court sustained an objection of the defendant to the introduction of evidence, upon the ground that the complaint did not state a cause of action, and granted defendant’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, which judgment was duly entered.

The complaint alleged that defendant, publisher of a newspaper of wide circulation, maliciously published in a regular issue thereof the following allegedly false and unprivileged article, to wit: “Sonny Ray” (meaning thereby the plaintiff) “27, Australian actor, has been released on $2,000 bond, pending fuller investigation of charges that he overstayed his leave and failed to report his alleged arrest in San Francisco in 1923 on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and also to report an unauthorized departure from the United States.” It was alleged that by reason of said publication plaintiff had been brought into public scandal and disgrace and injured in his good name and reputation. No special damages were alleged.

The principal question is whether the article was libelous

per se.

The definition of libel which furnishes the test is found in section 45 of the Civil Code, which declares a false and unprivileged publication to be libelous which exposes a person to hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy, or which causes him to be shunned or avoided, or which has a tendency to injure him in his occupation.

[8]

We are required, as the trial court was, to regard the article as false in its entirety, as the complaint makes no admission of the truth of any statement contained therein. We are required also to place ourselves in the position of the reading public and from this viewpoint to consider the meaning and effect of the publication in its tendency to libel plaintiff. The article charges, in effect, that it was alleged that plaintiff had been arrested in San Francisco in 1923 on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor; that charges had been made against him to the effect that he had failed to report his alleged arrest; that he had overstayed his leave and had also failed to report an unauthorized departure from the United States.