Case ID: lock-rev-cas_1/html/0315-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Ryckman v. Delavan, 25 Wend. 186.
    In S. Ct. 17 Wend. 49.
    
      Libel; Pleading.
    
    Action for a libel stating that “ certain malting establish* merits on the hill in Albany, (owned, by particular individuals but not naming the plaintiff,) were supplied with water for malting from stagnant pools, gutters, and ditches, often in such a state as to be green on the. surface,” and that there were several malting houses on the hill, all of which relied on water taken occasionally from such places.” The plaintiff alleged in his declaration that he was a maltster and brewer at a place in the city of Albany called the “Hill,” and that to injure him in his good name, and to destroy his business, the defendant published the libel. The plaintiff put in a general demurrer, and assigned as cause of demurrer, that special damage was not alleged.
    The Supreme Court held that the publication was libellous, and that it was not necessary to allege special damage to sustain the action; but they also held that an action does not lie for a libel for a publication alleged to effect the individual characters of persons and the trade or business carried on by them, if on its face it does not point at the individuals intended, otherwise than that they pursue a particular trade or business in a specified section of a city; the publication affecting a class of persons, no individual of that class is entitled to sustain an action for the publication.
    The Court of Errors held, however, that an action may be sustained for such a libel, by an individual for an injury to his business, unless it be manifest upon the face of the publication that the charges were made against a class of society, a particular profession, an order or body of men at large, and can not, by possibility, import a personal application tending to produce private injury.
   The case of Sumner v. Buel, 12 J. R. 465, denying the right of an individual to maintain an action for a libel affecting a class of persons, without alleging special damages, questioned.

Judgment reversed; 10 for rev., 9 for aff