Title: Brown v. WRMA Broadcasting Company

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

238 So. 2d 540 (1970)
Willie Mack BROWN
v.
W. R. M. A. BROADCASTING COMPANY, Inc., a Corporation, et al.
3 Div. 374.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
August 6, 1970.
Matthis W. Piel, Montgomery, for appellant.
Hobbs, Copeland, Franco, Riggs & Screws, Montgomery, for appellees.
BLOODWORTH, Justice.
This case was originally assigned to another justice of this court. It was recently reassigned to the writer.
Plaintiff appeals from a judgment of voluntary nonsuit, taken with leave to appeal, contending the trial court erred to reversal in sustaining defendant W.R.M.A. Broadcasting Company's demurrer to his complaint.
The complaint is as follows:
It is plaintiff's position that his complaint is an action for slander. Defendant W.R.M.A. Broadcasting Company accepts this position though it points out that radio broadcasts have been held to be libel, citing Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Knickerbocker Broadcasting Co., (N.Y.) 172 Misc. 811, 15 N.Y.S.2d 193; Hryhorijiv v. Winchell, (N.Y.) 180 Misc. 574, 45 N.Y.S.2d 31, aff'd 267 App.Div. 817, 47 N.Y.S.2d 102. Since this issue is not directly presented to us on this appeal, we need not consider whether the action is libel or slander. For the purposes of this appeal, we consider the action to be slander, as the parties do.
Plaintiff contends the trial court was in error because it sustained the demurrer to the complaint. Defendant W.R.M.A. Broadcasting Company contends the complaint was demurrable because: there is a misjoinder of assault and battery and slander; the alleged slander is not slanderous per se, and plaintiff has failed to allege special damages; the date of the alleged slander is not set out; there can be no recovery for the alleged defamation because the police officer-plaintiff is a public official and it is not alleged to have been made with actual malice and with an awareness by defendant of its probable falsity.
As defendant aptly observes in brief:
We agree. Thus, we need only to consider whether the complaint is demurrable on any one ground. Crommelin v. Capitol Broadcasting Co., 280 Ala. 472, 474, 195 So. 2d 524 (1967).
It is clear from our decisions that in a slander action, to constitute slander actionable per se, the alleged slander must impute an indictable offense involving infamy or moral turpitude. Marion v. Davis, 217 Ala. 16, 114 So. 357, 55 A.L.R. 171 (1927), quoted with approval in Tonsmeire v. Tonsmeire, 281 Ala. 102, 199 So. 2d 645 (1967). We do not think the alleged slander here is actionable per se. We do not believe that being "fired and rehired" imputes an indictable offense involving infamy or moral turpitude; nor does "committing assault and battery" (assuming it is a part of the defamation charged). Dudley v. Horn, 21 Ala. 379; Gillman v. State, 165 Ala. 135, 136, 51 So. 722. "Infamy" is defined by Black's Law Dictionary, Fourth Edition, as:
"Moral turpitude signifies an inherent quality of baseness, vileness, depravity." Gillman v. State, supra.
However, as the court pointed out in Marion v. Davis, supra, viz:
"Per quod" is defined in Black's Law Dictionary, Fourth Ed., at p. 1293:
It seems clear that since no allegation of special damages is made in the complaint, the demurrers were properly sustained by the trial court.
Affirmed.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and SIMPSON, COLEMAN and McCALL, JJ., concur.
[1]  See discussion of "Per Se and Per Quod" in article, Blanton, Special Damage as an Element in Defamation Actions in Alabama, 2 Ala.L.Rev. 1, 6 (1949). See also article, Hare & Hare, Principal Alabama Actions in Tort, Part II, 22 Ala.L.Rev. 361, 399 (1970).