Baldwin v. Fries

This is an action for slander tried in the circuit court of Jasper county in which the plaintiff recovered a judgment for $575, from which the defendant took an appeal to the Kansas City court of appeals, and the case certified here by the latter court as “ involving the construction of provisions of the state constitution as shown by the briefs of counsel.”

The slander charged in the petition was, that the said defendant ‘ ‘ did say of plaintiff, in the presence of divers and sundry persons, that ‘he (meaning plaintiff) *287stole corn out of the pen of James McCall; he (meaning plaintiff) is a…