Irving v. Irving
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
Appeal by the plaintiff, Edith II. Irving, from so much of an, interlocutory judgment of the Supreme Court in favor of the defendant, entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Westchester on the'7th day of January, 1905, upon the decision óf the court rendered after a trial at the Westchester Special Term as sustains the defendant’s demurrer to.the second cause of action set forth in the amendéd. complaint.
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Appeal by the plaintiff, Edith II. Irving, from so much of an, interlocutory judgment of the Supreme Court in favor of the defendant, entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Westchester on the'7th day of January, 1905, upon the decision óf the court rendered after a trial at the Westchester Special Term as sustains the defendant’s demurrer to.the second cause of action set forth in the amendéd. complaint. The demurrer was that the said cause of action did not state facts sufficient. ’ " ' It is set out on the second cause of action that Dr. Stubbert ■attended the plaintiff, whose…
1Opinion of the Court
Gaynor, J.:
It is a familiar every day rule of pleading in actions for slander or" libel, that if the words complained of are equivocal, i. e., capable of an innocent meaning and a libelous meaning, the former has to be adopted by the court at the trial, and the case has to be dismissed ; unless the complaint has a special allegation that the libelous meaning was the one meant and conveyed by the defendant, in which case the question of the meaning is one of fact and not of law. Under such a special allegation the plaintiff may introduce any evidence to show that the defamatory sense was meant…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Taylor v. WallaceNew York Supreme Court · 1900
3Cited by2 opinions
- Wildstein v. New York Post Corp.New York Supreme Court · 1963
- Gordon v. HymanNew York Supreme Court · 1927