Blessing v. Davis
New York Supreme Court
This was an action of slander, tried at the Albany circuit in April, 1837, before the Hon. James Yanderpoel, then one of the circuit judges. The several counts of the declaration (among other charges of direct and particular sets of confessedly slanderous words laid in various ways) sought to fix a slander upon the defendant as having adopted certain words previously used by one Batterman, and saying they were true.
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This was an action of slander, tried at the Albany circuit in April, 1837, before the Hon. James Yanderpoel, then one of the circuit judges. The several counts of the declaration (among other charges of direct and particular sets of confessedly slanderous words laid in various ways) sought to fix a slander upon the defendant as having adopted certain words previously used by one Batterman, and saying they were true. In order to introduce these words, the declaration recited the trial of a cause in a justice’s court wherein the plaintiff was a party, and that an affidavit was made by him as…
1Opinion of the Court
*101 By the Court,
Cowen, J.
It is conceded that, had the defendant been charged as the originator of the slanderous words, the declaration would be bad in substance, by reason of its generality. Ward v. Clark, 2 Johns. R. 10, 13. But it is denied that the same particularity is requisite where the imputed slander consists in adopting the words of another. We can perceive no reason for the distinction. In the first ease the object is to see whether the words imputed to the defendant by the declaration are slanderous in their character, and give notice to him so that he may know against what he is to…
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