Cook v. Bostwick
New York Supreme Court
This was an action, of slander, tried at the Stuben circuit in November, 1831, before the Hon. Robert Monell, one of the circuit judges.
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This was an action, of slander, tried at the Stuben circuit in November, 1831, before the Hon. Robert Monell, one of the circuit judges. On the 12th August, 1831, Cook went to Almond village, in the county of Allegany, to attend to a suit, in which he was defendant, depending before H. Cutler, Esq. a justice of the peace of Allegany county, and stopped at an inn kept by one Crandall within a few rods of the office of the justice, and went to the horse shed of the inn to fasten his horse. The line separating the counties of Allegany and Stuben passes between the inn and shed, within a few feet…
1Opinion of the Court
By the Court,
Savage, Ch. J.
The judge was right in submitting to the jury to determine in what sense the words were spoken. If spoken with a malicious intent, and with the view to defame, they were actionable. The jury have found that they were so spoken, and the verdict is sustained by the evidence. That the defendant intended to impute perjury to the plaintiff, is evinced by his declaration that he would have him indicted for perjury. The defendant ought not to be excused on the ground that perjury could not have been committed. If, in truth, the plaintiff had not attended at Almond village…
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