Gross v. Mallamud

Motion to dismiss the complaint for legal insufficiency. The complaint sets forth that at a meeting of the Parents’ Association of the Mosholu Parkway Junior High School the defendant called the plaintiff “ a Communist and a Communist plant ”. Since no special damages are alleged the complaint must be dismissed unless the utterance is held to be slanderous per se.

*6In Garriga v. Richfield (174 Misc. 315) it was held that it was not slanderous per se to make a false charge that a person is a communist. On the other hand, the written publication, if untrue, that one is a communist has been held…