Opinion ID: 1101396
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: General Statute of Limitations for Libel Actions

Text: ¶ 13. Mississippi Code Annotated § 15-1-35 provides in pertinent part: All actions for ... slanderous words concerning the person or title, for failure to employ, and for libels, shall be commenced within one (1) year next after the cause of such action accrued, and not after. Miss.Code Ann. § 15-1-35 (Rev.1995) (emphasis added). ¶ 14. Generally, an action for libel or defamation accrues at the time of the first publication for public consumption, as the public is the custodian of one's reputation. Forman v. Mississippi Publishers Corp., 195 Miss. 90, 14 So.2d 344 (1943). In Forman, this Court, discussing what is known today as the single publication rule, held the following: Since the gravamen of the offense is not the knowledge by the plaintiff nor the injury to his feelings but the degrading of reputation, the right accrued as soon as the paper was exhibited to third persons in whom alone such repute is resident. Forman, 195 Miss. at 107, 14 So.2d at 347 ( citing McCarlie v. Atkinson, 77 Miss. 594, 27 So. 641 (1900)). ¶ 15. In Staheli v. Smith, 548 So.2d 1299 (Miss.1989), an exception to the general rule was recognized. Staheli, an engineering professor at the University of Mississippi filed suit against the Dean of the School of Engineering for alleged defamatory material which had been placed in Staheli's tenure file. Id. at 1300-01. The dean claimed that Staheli was barred by § 15-1-35, citing the general rule that the statute began to run from the date of publication of the allegedly libelous statement to a third person. Id. at 1302. Staheli argued that the statute should not begin to run until he reasonably, by due diligence, was able to discover that he had been defamed. Id. ¶ 16. This Court held in Staheli that: We are convinced that the general policies underlying this statute of limitations will not be thwarted by adoption of the discovery rule in that limited class of libel cases in which, because of the secretive or inherently undiscoverable nature of the publication the plaintiff did not know, or with reasonable diligence could not have discovered, that he had been defamed. In such rare instances, we do not believe that a plaintiff can be accused of sleeping on his rights.... Id. at 1303. ¶ 17. However, in Staheli, we noted a decision issued by the federal district court of Connecticut. See L. Cohen & Co. v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 629 F.Supp. 1425 (D.Conn.1986). In L. Cohen & Co., the federal district court found that the Connecticut statute of limitations in defamation actions began to run at the time of the act complained of, not when the plaintiff discovered or reasonably should have discovered the publication of the allegedly libelous material. We found merit in the federal court's conclusion that there exists a significant difference between limitations statutes establishing accrual of actions from the date of the act complained of (like Connecticut's) and others setting a statute of limitations running from the time the cause of action accrued (like Mississippi's). We found that it was only in the latter instance that the discovery rule is to be applied.