Stowell v. Beagle

Citations

• 57 Ill. 97

Syllabus

<p>1. Pleading and Evidence. In an action of slander, for charging the plaintiff with having committed fornication, and the plea of justification averred that plaintiff had been guilty of fornication, without averring any time, it was error in the court to restrict the proof of her having coinmittcd fornication to two years before the words were spoken by defendant. The plea not being limited as to time, the proof should not have been. Proof of the truth of the plea without reference to when the act was committed, was pertinent to the issue, and should have been admitted.</p> <p>2. It was improper to admit evidence of the fact that there was a prior personal difficulty between defendant and the father of plaintiff, as it did not tend to prove actual malice against the plaintiff, and was not pertinent to the issue.</p> <p>3. Where the plea of justification set up the fact that the plaintiff had been guilty of fornication, it was error to instruct the jury that to maintain the plea the defendant must prove the words charged were true, on the grounds that plaintiff, although an unmarried woman, was guilty of fornication, and had been delivered of a child, and it was necessary that such alleged facts, constituting the justification, should be proved by clear and satisfactory evidence, and if not so proved, the defense would fail. Nothing being in the plea in regard to the plaintiff’s having been delivered of a child, the instruction was too broad, and should not have been given. Such an instruction was well calculated to mislead the jury.</p>