Stroebel v. Whitney

Action for defamation. The principle of common sense which now governs in the construction of words in such actions, is that courts will understand them as other people would. The question always is, how would ordinary men naturally understand the language ? It is going too far to argue that words must necessarily bear a criminal import, in order to render them actionable per se. It is not enough to show by ingenious argument that they might, possibly admit of some other meaning. The question is whether, in the ordinary acceptation of the language, a person could reasonably doubt its…