Luzenberg v. O'Malley

Citations

• 116 La. 699
• 41 So. 41
• 1906 La. LEXIS 555

Syllabus

<p>1. Libel-Publication as to Candidate fob Office.</p> <p>Defendants published that for reasons too numerous to mention plaintiff was unfit to be district attorney, or even to practice law. Challenged to name these reasons, defendants gave them in the form of self-answering questions, putting at the head of the list the question whether plaintiff’s brother had not done thus and so, referring to reprehensible conduct on the part of the, brother. Held, that the brother’s misconduct could render plaintiff unfit to be district attorney or to practice law only if he had participated therein, and that therefore the imputation contained in the question was that plaintiff had participated in some way in this misconduct of the brother. Held, secondly, that the facts from which it must be supposed the authors of the publication intended that the reader should draw his conclusions are those stated in the publication, and not others not stated or alluded to therein.</p> <p>2. Same—Justification—Sufficiency.</p> <p>Justification of a different charge from that complained of as libelous is no justification at all. Where the charge is that plaintiff participated in the act of his brother in approaching for a large fee certain defendants whom plaintiff was prosecuting as district attorney, the proof that plaintiff did not impart to the proper authorities the intelligence of his brother’s misconduct as soon as it reached his ears, so that the brother continued to remain in an employment of trust for which he had shown himself to be unfit, is the justification of a different charge from that made, and is no justification at all. .</p> <p>[Ed. Note.—For cases in point, see vol. 32, Gent. Dig. Libel and Slander, § 333.]</p> <p>3. Same—License to Publish.</p> <p>The demand of plaintiff that defendants should name the “reasons too numerous to mention” why he was unfit to be district attorney, or even to practice law, was not a license to defendants to publish defamatory falsehoods about