Title: Kleinschmidt v. MATTHIEU

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

Reversed February 10, 1954.
Petition for rehearing denied June 2, 1954.
*407 Paul R. Harris, of Portland, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the brief was Henry Bauer, of Portland.
Robert F. Maguire, of Portland, argued the cause for respondents. On the brief were Stephen W. Matthieu and Maguire, Shields, Morrison & Bailey, of Portland.
REVERSED.
LATOURETTE, C.J.
The question posed is whether an action for libel lies against the estate of a testator whose will contains words libelous per se. The challenged language is:
The trial court ruled in the negative, sustaining the general demurrer to the complaint; hence the appeal. This question is of first impression in this court.
The rule that there is no such right of action is laid down in the following cases: Citizens' & Southern Nat. Bank v. Hendricks, (1933) 176 Ga 692, 168 SE 313, 87 ALR 230; Carver v. Morrow, (1948) 213 SC 199, 48 SE2d 814. Defendants also cite Nagle v. Nagle, *408 (1934) 316 Pa 507, 175 A 487. That such an action will lie is sustained by the following authorities: Harris v. Nashville Trust Co., (1914), 128 Tenn 573, 162 SW 584; Brown v. Mack, 56 NYS2d 910; Gallagher's Estate, 10 Pa Dist R 733; In re Draske's Will, 290 NYS 581.
In Citizen's etc. v. Hendricks, (1933) supra, the denial of libel was based principally on the maxim, Actio personalis moritur cum persona, (a personal action dies with a person), and, secondly, that there was no publication by the executor since he is an agency of the law to administer the estate and not the representative of the testator. In the Carver v. Morrow case, (1948), supra, the reasoning of the Georgia case was adhered to. It is difficult to determine from the Nagle case, supra, whether there was an absolute or a qualified privilege involved, although from the language used it would seem that the court was relying upon a qualified privilege. Further, the executors, in the performance of their duties, alleged the illegitimacy of the alleged heir rather than the testator.
In Harris v. Nashville Trust Co., (1914), supra, the maxim, Actio personalis moritur cum persona, so far as it relates to the question before us, is exploded. It is there pointed out that the tort for which liability attached was not committed during the lifetime of the testator, that publication of the will is the gravamen of the offense and that did not take place until after the demise of the libelant. It is there stated that the above maxim has been denounced by leading text writers and is not a favorite with the courts. Further, it is stated:
*410 1. It is argued that since an executor is the agent of the testator during his lifetime, the agency derived therefrom, not being coupled with an interest, dies with the death of the testator, and that in the probate of a will an executor is an officer of the court and his acts in probating the will are those of the court rather than of a testator; therefore there could be no publication of the same by an executor on behalf of a testator. According to 1 Restatement of the Law of Agency, p 7,
By no stretch of the imagination could the relationship between a testator and executor arising out of the execution of a will, during the lifetime of a testator, fit into the above pattern. We therefore conclude that a named executor in a will is not ordinarily the agent of the testator during the life of the latter, and, consequently, the alleged agency could not be interred with him.
2. Nor does the executor become an officer or agent of the court until he is appointed and letters testamentary are issued to him.
In Holladay v. Holladay, 16 Or 147, 149, 19 P 81, we said:
Again, in Huber v. Tazwell, 132 Or 122, 127, 283 P 745, we said:
3. It therefore appears that there is a hiatus between the testator's death and the court appointment of the executor. During this period when he, or the custodian of the will, files the same with the clerk, he is not acting for the court but necessarily for the deceased. When the testator executes his will he does the same with full knowledge that the same will be made public, and, although the executor or custodian in such instance is not what would strictly be called an agent under the common-law rule, yet he is an instrumentality through which the will is published, and when he does thus act he in effect publishes the will at the behest of the testator.
4. It is next contended that the publication of the will in the course of the proceedings in probate was and is absolutely privileged. This reasoning is fallacious in that the publication of the will, as we have held, antedates the probate thereof.
*412 In Brown v. Mack, supra, 56 NYS 910, 917, we read:
In the light of modern jurisprudence, we believe that the rule laid down in the Harris v. Nashville Trust Company case, supra, and others, is the most salutary one. We again quote from that decision:
Dean Prosser, in his valuable work on Torts, p 813, said:
We read the following in Harper on the Law of Torts:
This is a novel case and there are very few judicial utterances on the question. One line of cases misapplies an old principle of law which has been discredited by text writers and court decisions while the other adopts a rule that is "consonent with the trend of present-day judicial thinking and with modern conceptions of justice." Bedell v. Goulter, 199 Or 344, 261 P2d 842.
We call attention to the following language in Hinish v. Meier & Frank Co., 166 Or 482, 504, 113 P2d 438:
5. Since the law in Oregon has not been settled on the question before us and since § 10, article I of our constitution gives every man a remedy for injury done to his reputation, and since the question of a right to recover for libel by will had never arisen under the common law of England, Gatley on Libel and Slander (British) 1953 ed, p 414, we hold that an action will lie against a testator's estate for libelous matter contained in a will published after the death of a testator.
The court erred in sustaining the demurrer to the complaint. The judgment will be reversed.