Lionel G. Arcand v. The Evening Call Publishing Company

COFFIN, Chief Judge.

This appeal raises the question whether defendants’ allegedly defamatory newspaper column comment made sufficient reference to plaintiffs-appellants to withstand a motion to dismiss the complaint. The case belongs in the ancient but not overpopulated genre of group libel. 1

Plaintiffs are the twenty-one members of the Bellingham, Massachusetts, Police Department. Defendants are, severally, the Rhode Island writer, editor, and newspaper responsible for the circulation of a column in the Woonsocket Call and Evening Reporter which closed with the provocative question: “Is it…