Court Opinion

ID: 9848311
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:16:21.069482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:12.224012
License: Public Domain

Evans, Judge,
dissenting. I concur in Judge Pannell’s dissent.
Some very bad law has been made in Georgia by court decisions beginning with Behre v. National Cash Register Company, 100 Ga. 213 (1) (27 SE 986), in holding that a corporation is not liable for its false and malicious defamatory spoken words, unless the agent was expressly authorized by the corporation to speak the false, malicious and defamatory words. In other words, if the president of a corporation falsely and maliciously slanders another there is no recourse against the corporation, even though the president was acting in the prosecution of his duties as agent thereof, unless the corporation expressly authorized the speaking of such words. That means unless the board of directors met and formally passed a resolution which instructed the president of the corporation to defame that certain individual, the corporation cannot be held liable for his conduct. Why should the corporation be liable for its written defamation of another by one of its agents, and not liable for its spoken defamation? Why should a corporation be held liable for the conduct of its agent in wrongfully and negligently running a motor vehicle over an individual, with no responsibility for ruining the good name of another person?
All of these decisions so holding should be overruled.