Court Opinion

ID: 9566038
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:32:23.325698+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:58.419847
License: Public Domain

Sognier, Judge,
dissenting.
I concur fully with Judge Banke’s dissent and further dissent for the following reason.
In determining the actionability of the written statement we have here, it is important to keep in mind the context in which the exchange of words was made. The Cadaver is a medical student’s publication and affidavits, and past issues made part of the record, show that a predominant part of the publication is devoted to heavily satirical and blatantly obscene jokes and observations. Letters to the editors of the Cadaver are usually accompanied by pungent, outrageous repartee, intended for the amusement and éntertainment of the paper’s readers. Considering the publication as a whole and the typical reply by the editors to other letters, there is nothing to indicate that appellant was maliciously singled out for particular abuse or ridicule by appellees. Even when looking specifically to the reply to appellant’s letter, there is nothing to indicate that appellees were referring to some secret knowledge of appellant’s sexual reputation. On the contrary, appellees, by holding themselves up to ridicule with their description of their own ancestry, removed any possibility that the “punch line” to their reply could be taken as imputing immorality, promiscuous relations or unchaste behavior by appellant.
Furthermore, appellant, in writing the Cadaver and calling its contents “sick,” “junk,” “trash,” something “to be dug out of the garbage heap” and “for the bottom of bird cages,” purposefully instigated this exchange of words. Appellant deliberately poked at a hornet’s nest: she should not now be allowed to seek salve for her stings from this court. See McGee v. Collins, 100 S 430, 435 (9) (1924) (one who provokes a libel not allowed to recover against another who has retaliated in kind).
I am authorized to state that Judge Banke and Judge Pope join in this dissent.