Case ID: ad_149/html/0640-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Miller, J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Charles F. H. Johnson, Appellant, v. Lewis M. Isaacs and Harry Mack, Defendants, Impleaded with Stanley M. Isaacs, Respondent.
    First Department,
    March 8, 1912.
    Libel — charge of conversion.
    It is libelous per se to charge that the plaintiff with others received money for the account of another and wrongfully disposed of and converted the same to then own use.
    Appeal by the plaintiff, Charles F. H. Johnson, from an order of the Supreme Court, made at the New York Special Term and entered in the office of the clerk of the county of New York on the 20th day of Hovember, 1911, granting the motion of the defendant Stanley M. Isaacs for judgment on the pleadings.
    
      John V. Judge [John T. Fenlon with him on the brief], for the appellant.
    
      Leo G. Rosenblatt, for the respondent.
   Miller, J.:

The only point in this case is whether it is libelous to charge that the plaintiff and others received money for the account of another, and “wrongfully disposed and converted the same to their own use.” While it is quite true that a technical conversion may not involve moral turpitude, we think there can be no doubt that the average reader would understand the charge complained of to mean that an agent had appropriated his principal’s money to his own use, and it is so plain that such a charge is libelous per se that it is idle to examine the cases of technical conversion cited by the respondent.

The order should be reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and the motion denied, with ten dollars costs.

Ingraham, P. J., McLaughlin, Laughlin and Dowling, JJ., concurred.

Order reversed, with ten dollars costs and disbursements, and motion denied, with ten dollars costs.