When the complaint in an action for libel says the defendant "published concerning the plaintiff in a newspaper, c., a certain article containing the false and defamatory matter following," c., it sufficiently avers that the defamatory matter was concerning the plaintiff. The article — which is the whole article and every part of it — is averred to be concerning the plaintiff, and as the whole includes all its parts, the defamatory part must be concerning the plaintiff.
An article in a newspaper containing the following words: "No! counsellors and friends of the Adairs, (who had been convicted of murder,) I blame not an attorney or attorneys for taking fees and defending the most guilty criminals as far as the law and respectable evidence will justify in giving them a fair trial, but after that, going to the streets among people, proclaiming their innocence, trying to influence public opinion, hiring or otherwise procuring false-hearted and unprincipled scoundrels to purjure [perjure] themselves by giving affidavits and implicating other innocent persons to obtain the pardon or release of the Adairs. Your slanderous and false charges against innocent men must fall to the ground, but they show your unprincipled course," is apparently libelous.
RODMAN, J.
The ingenious argument of the counsel for the defendant has failed to satisfy us that the complaint is defective. C. C. P., sec. 124 was intended to do away with the refined and subtle distinctions which had found a place in the law of pleading in actions for libel.
When the complaint says that the defendant "published concerning the plaintiff in a newspaper, c., a certain article containing the false and defamatory matter following," c., it sufficiently avers that the defamatory matter was concerning the plaintiff. The article — which is the whole article and every part of it — is averred to be concerning the plaintiff, and as the whole includes all its parts, the defamatory part must be concerning the plaintiff.
We think the words set forth are apparently libelous.
Judgment affirmed, and case remanded to be proceeded in, c.
Let this opinion be certified.
PER CURIAM. Judgment affirmed.