The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-11-13
Blount County Court Erred in It's Refusal to Sustain
 Abatement Pleas, Is Ruling
tContinued from Paee onel

that 1t must be brought, If at all, in Jefferson county.
 Text of Decision
 The full text of the courts decision is as follows:
 The state of Alabama, judicial de- partment, the supreme court of Ala bama, October term. 1921-22. Div 20.
 Age Herald Publishing company vs. George Huddleston, appeal from Blount circuit court.
 Somerville, J. The complaint is in nine counts. each of which, in statu- tory form, declares upon separate IiLel published by defendant of and concerning the plaintiff, fin a news paper published -at Birmingham"
 The action is brought in the cir cult court of Blount county, and venue Jurisdiction of the court is challenged by eight several pleas in abatement, each of which sets up facts from which it concludes that the venue of the action is improperly laid in Blount county, and to each of which d demurrer was duly sustained.
 It is not necessary to state in de- tail the allegations of all of these pleas. and the grounds of demurrer thereto, but 1t will suffice to say that the meriterlous question raised by the> demurrers and their susten- tion by the trial court in, whether the act of defendant in mailing libelous copies of it's paper at Birmingham. addressed to and received by sub scribers in Blount county amounted per se to a publication or circula- ton by defendant of these papers in Blount county. so as to constitute an injury which occurred in that county, within the meaning of Section 5llT of the Code. which permits the venue of actions against corporations for personal injuries to be laid "in the county where the injury occurred" It is conceded by counsel for plain tiff that the venue as here laid de- bends solely upon the consideration above stated, and other bases of venue need not be noticed, since all of them are excluded by the allegations of the pleas.
 Defendanfs Contention
 Defendants contention of course is, that the printing. publishing and mailing of it's papers at Birmingham. though it resulted proximately and necessarily in their circulation and exposure in other counties, including Blount, effected a complete publica- tion of the alleged libels In Jeffer- son county, and that their subsequent circulation and exposure in other counties were not separate publica- tions of the libels constituting inde- pendent and separately actionable wrongs. but were more clements of damnum growing out of the primary wrong which occurred in Jefferson county, where both plaintiff and de- fendant reside, and where the venue must therefore be laid.
 Or, If several copies of the original issue. as published at Birmin-hAn have been subsequently, caused to cir culate in Blount county by the acts of defendant in mailing them at Bir- mingham-neverthel the injury injuria, not damnum-occurred In Jefferson county within the meaning of Section 6f17 of the Code, which lays the venue "in the county where the injury occurred"
 The questions thus presented have never been considered by this court, but on common law principles, and under some venue statutes, the au- thorities in general seem to support the view that an action for libel may be brought in any jurisdiction where the 1ioelous matter was published or circulated.
 In 25 Cyc. 33, it Is said: '1n the case of libel, it is held that it Is not the Jurisdiction in which the article Is printed, but the jurisdiction in which it is published and circulated that determines whether the words used are actionable. So the general rule is that an action for libel may De brought and tried in any county in which the libel was published or cir culated." And in IS American and English encyclopedia law (2d edi- tion). no: 'An action or prosecution for a 1ihal Uanaral rNIla ha brought either in the Jurisdiction where the defendant resides or is found. or in any jurisdiction where the defamatory matter was published or circulated" These texts are well supported by the cases cited in the notes.
 Cases Cited
 The cases supporting the view that an action for libel against a newspa- per for libelous matter published by it may, under venue statutes of vary ing phraseology. be brought in any county where the paper is circulated, regardless of where it Is printed. published and sent out for distribu- tion are collected in the note to the following cases; Graham vs. Nixon. (Cal) l.. R. A. 191s-F, 1923, 1026-s; State vs. Finer. (Wash.) Ann. Can. 19l5-A. 695, 697; State vs. Huston, (S D.) Ann. Gas. 391. Very full discus sions of the subject will be found in Julius vs. K. c. Star Co.,, 2o9 Mo. s5, l07 S. W. 4ss; and State vs. Moore. tLa) 72 South. 965. in both the ma jority and the minority opinions.
 In the Julian case, supra, under a statute permitting an action to be brought against corporations fin the county in which the cause of action 1 occurred" it<was held by the ma jority of the court that libel suit against newspaper could be main tained in any county where the news paper was circulated. The following from the opinion of Valiant, J., is fairly representative of the reason ing upon which that view of the ques- tion is supported:
 When therefore the defendant sent it's newspaper containing the 1 article complained of into Platte county and there gave 1t out toA the public, if the article was libelousN in character what element was lacking 1 to constitute a cause of action then and there? Let us take the defi- nition of cause and action as given in the brief of defendants learned counsel; it is the existence of every fact which is material to be proved to entitle the plaintiff to recover what fact essenual TO the plainrill s right of recovery did not occur in Platte county? But 1t is said that the publication first occurred in Jackson county and that the plaintiffs right of action accrued there if at all. We agree with cousel for defendant that the one issue of the newspa per. though il may have been of many thousand copies distributed in many different counties. gave but one cause of action, but to reach that con clusion we must say that there was but one publication. If we should say that the publication in Jackson