Wright v. Coules

GRAY, P. J.

This is an action for injury to the1 plaintiff’s hotel business alleged to have been caused by publications made by defendants in several newspapers. A demurrer to the amended complaint as amended was sustained and the appeal from the judgment is by plaintiff.

The questions presented relate to the sufficiency of the complaint. The amended complaint as amended purports to set out three several and distinct causes of action. In the first cause of action it is alleged in substance that plaintiff was engaged in the business of an innkeeper at the Hotel Arcadia in Santa Monica, in the county of Los Angeles, on the twenty-seventh day of August, 1904, and for that purpose had a lease of the premises extending from a date at least two years prior to said date and up to and including the date of the filing of this suit, and that such business was popular and the income therefrom was about the sum of $2,000; that at the date of the publication complained of several persons, Young, Paine, Mrs. Paine, Wilsely and Lawrence had notified the plaintiff that they were about to come to the said Hotel Arcadia and lodge or room in the said inn. It is further alleged that on said twenty-seventh day of August, 1904, the defendants maliciously and without reason caused to be published in the Los Angeles “Examiner,” a public newspaper printed in the city of Los Angeles and state of California, and widely distributed, etc., among the numerous customers, boarders, lodgers and transients of said hotel, a false and injurious article. We quote from said article, as set out in the complaint, as follows:

“The famous Hotel Arcadia at Santa Monica has been purchased by the Occidental Club and will be remodeled into a colossal country club house, the largest in the world, for the use of the members and their families.

“The deal was accomplished by a double sale, O. B. Steen, an Arizona mining man, purchasing from the Pacific Improvement and transferring the property to the Angeles In

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vestment Company, the parent corporation of the Occidental Club. The price was well into six figures.