McLenahan v. Andrews

Citations

• 135 Pa. 383
• 19 A. 1039
• 1890 Pa. LEXIS 1191

Syllabus

<p>1. After the trial of an action for slander on its merits and on the assumption that the substance of the alleged slander, as charged in the narr, was that the plaintiff was an adulteress, it is too late for the defendant to escape from an adverse verdict, by an objection that it was not averred in the narr or proved on the trial that the plaintiff was a married woman at the time referred to when the slanderous words were spoken of her.</p> <p>2, Under such circumstances, the defendant having pleaded “ privileged communication and justification,” it was not reversible error for the court to charge as follows: “In their arguments, counsel seem, and properly too, to agree in this, that the substance of the charges contained in the several counts.....is that the defendant- declared to one or more than one person, or in their hearing, that she, the plaintiff, had committed the crime of adultery.”</p>