Case ID: scl_38/html/0258-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "O’Neall, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

William M. Lawton vs. Benjamin F. Hunt.
    
    In an action for a libel, a plea that the words are true, and, therefore, that the defendant is not guilty, concluding to the country, is bad.
    
      Before O’Neall, J., at Charleston, May Term, 1850.
    This was an action for a libel. The defendant pleaded, in bar, that the libel was true, and, therefore, he was not guilty; and put himself upon the country. The plaintiff demurred, and his Honor sustained the demurrer.
    The defendant appealed, and now moved this Court to reverse the decision of the Circuit- Judge, on the ground that the plea is valid, as a special traverse, and ought to be sustained.
    
      Hunt & Son, for the motion.
    ■-, contra.
   Curia, per

O’Neall, J.

This Court is entirely satisfied with the decision below; but; as the defendant thought he had a ground in law sufficient to appeal, it is perhaps proper to test his plea by what is said by that eminent pleader, Mr. Chitty. “ It is now (he says, 1 Ch. PI. 494,) well settled, that, in an action for a libel, or slanderous words, the defendant cannot, under the general issue, give in evidence the truth of the matter, or any part of it, even in mitigation of damages, but must justify, specially stating the particular parts which evince the truth of the imputation; and the rule holds, whether the imputation upon the plaintiff’s character be of a general or specific nature.”

The defendant’s plea, which the groirnd of appeal supposes to be a special traverse, is a naked averment of the' truth of the libel, with a conclusion that, therefore, he is not guilty, and of this he puts himself on the country.

That this is a plain violation of what has been cited from Mr. Chitty, it seems to me must be perceived by the most unskilled in the law.

So, too, such a mingling of the forms of pleading has scarcely ever before been tried by the boldest pleaders.

The motion is dismissed.

Evans, Wardl aw, Frost, Withers and Whitner, JX, concurred.

Motion dismissed>