Memphis Publishing Co. v. Nichols

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• observing that identified material omissions in a newspaper article had raised a clear and erroneous implication of an adulterous relationship
• framing the issue as “whether the libel as published would have a different effect on the mind of the reader from that which the pleaded truth would have produced”
• inference that shooting victim was engaged in adulterous affair because the story omitted the fact that the shooting occurred during a social gathering
• published statement that included selected facts but omitted other key facts “so distorted the truth as to make the entire article false and defamatory”
• “The plaintiff must plead and prove injury from the alleged defamatory words, whether their defam atory meaning be obvious or not.”
• “Truth is available as an absolute defense only when the defamatory meaning conveyed by the words is true.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).