Electric Furnace Corporation, and Cross-Appellant v. Deering Milliken Research Corporation, and Defendant,cross-Appellee

O’SULLIVAN, Circuit Judge.

We consider here the appeal of Deering Milliken Research Corporation (Deering) defendant in a libel action, from a judgment for plaintiff, Electric Furnace Corporation (Electric), awarding plaintiff-appellee $834.36 compensatory and $50,000 punitive damages. Judgment was entered after the District Court reduced, as excessive, a jury’s verdict, returned July 30, 1965, for $2,000 compensatory and $60,000 punitive damages.

This judgment was the product of the third trial of this lawsuit. The outcome of the first trial in which a jury awarded $6,420 compensatory and…