Title: Farnsworth v. Hyde

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

512 P.2d 1003 (1973)
Al FARNSWORTH, Appellant,
v.
Dayton O. HYDE, Respondent, Dial Press, Inc., Defendant.

Supreme Court of Oregon, In Banc.
Argued and Submitted May 3, 1973.
Decided August 2, 1973.
Michael J. Bird, Grants Pass, argued the cause for appellant. On the brief were Brown & Hughes, Grants Pass.
Stanley C. Jones, Klamath Falls, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was J. Anthony Giacomini, Klamath Falls.
DENECKE, Justice.
Plaintiff alleged the defendants libeled him and sought damages. The defendant Hyde filed a demurrer to plaintiff's complaint which was sustained and upon judgment in favor of Hyde, plaintiff appealed. Dial Press, Inc., is no longer a party.
The defendant Hyde wrote a book in which he stated:
The sole issue on appeal is whether these statements can be considered libelous. The trial court held as a matter of law they could not.
The court, as distinguished from the jury, determines whether a communication is capable of a defamatory meaning. Fowler v. Stradley, 238 Or. 606, 617, 395 P.2d 867, 11 A.L.R.3d 873 (1964), adopted 3 Restatement 304, Torts § 614, to this effect.
We defined a defamatory communication as one which would subject the plaintiffs "to hatred, contempt or ridicule * * * [or] tend to diminish the esteem, respect, goodwill or confidence in which each is held or to excite adverse, derogatory or unpleasant feelings or opinions against them." Andreason v. Guard Publishing Co., 260 Or. 308, 311, 489 P.2d 944, 945 (1971), adopting the definition from Prosser, Torts, 756 (3d ed. 1964).[1]
American courts generally have held that a person is defamed if his reputation is tarnished among "a substantial and respectable minority" of the community or of the defamed's associates. 3 Restatement 141, Torts § 559, Comment e. In Reiman v. Pac. Devel. Society, 132 Or. 82, 89, 284 P. 575, 578 (1930), we adopted the following from Peck v. Tribune Co., 214 U.S. 185, 29 S. Ct. 554, 53 L. Ed. 960, 16 Ann. Cas. 1075 (1909), "it is enough if the publication `obviously would hurt the plaintiff in the estimation of an important and responsible part of the community.'"
The words written by the defendant are capable of being interpreted to mean that plaintiff was extremely lazy, so much so that he was a poor farmer and had his wife do most of the hard work around the farm.
We hold that these words are capable of being interpreted to subject plaintiff to ridicule and diminish the esteem and respect in which plaintiff may be held by a substantial number of people in his community. We are of the opinion, particularly in a farming community, that a substantial number of plaintiff's associates might look upon their fellow with lower esteem, or perhaps with contempt, if they believed these words.[2]
There are no decisions from this jurisdiction which assist in our determination. In Andreason v. Guard Publishing Co., supra, 260 Or. at 311, 489 P.2d  at 945, a majority of this court was of the opinion that "a statement that a husband and wife are separated and are in the process of getting a divorce would not in itself" be defamatory. We think it is apparent that the statements in the present case are in a different category.
Prosser states, generally:
The closest case on the facts is from a New York trial court, Pignatelli v. New York Tribune, 117 Misc. 466, 192 N.Y.S. 605 (1921). The defendant newspaper wrote:
In an action for libel the defendant filed the equivalent of a demurrer. The court overruled the demurrer, stating:
The opinion by Judge Learned Hand in Burton v. Crowell Pub. Co., 82 F.2d 154 (2d Cir.1936), appears in the case books as an illustration of ridicule amounting to defamation. A photograph in an advertisement made the plaintiff appear obscenely deformed. That the deformity was due to an optical illusion and was not really part of plaintiff was obvious. The court reversed a judgment that the advertisement was not capable of being construed as libelous. Judge Hand wrote:
In Powers v. Durgin-Snow Pub. Co., 154 Me. 108, 144 A.2d 294, 77 A.L.R.2d 607 (1958), a charge of excess thriftiness was held to be defamatory. The newspaper story said of the plaintiff, Powers:
In the 1890s when the immediate goal of the women's liberation movement was suffrage, the defendant newspaper published an article commenting:
The story went on to state that the plaintiff, Nellie McFadden, and another girl had a rowing race to decide who would win the regard of a certain young man. In the ensuing libel action the court upheld a $3,000 verdict for plaintiff. The court virtuously wrote:
Reversed and remanded.
McALLISTER, J., concurs in the result.
BRYSON, J., did not participate in this opinion.
[1]  Prosser's 4th edition states: "* * * Defamation is rather that which tends to injure `reputation' in the popular sense; to diminish the esteem, respect, goodwill or confidence in which the plaintiff is held, or to excite adverse, derogatory or unpleasant feelings or opinions against him. * * *." Prosser, Torts, supra at 739.
[2]  We are not holding that merely stating that a person is lazy is defamatory. We are holding that it can be defamatory if embellished by all the illustrations and statements which were present in this case.