Court Opinion

ID: 9563875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:48:54.39986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:06.627540
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
In both the 1957 and 1958 publications the Company stated that plaintiff had been “fired” as a school teacher. We held that it was error for the trial court not to give an instruction that truth would be a defense to that allegedly defamatory statement. In her petition for rehearing plaintiff claims that we were mistaken, since the Company had admitted in its answer to the complaint that plaintiff had not been fired. That is true; we acknowledge the mistake. The defense of truth ought to have been available to the Company only with regard to published statements, claimed by plaintiff to be defamatory, which the Company had not admitted were false.
We have reviewed other matters discussed in plaintiff’s petition and conclude that there is nothing there which requires any further modification of our original opinion, or which constrains us to amplify it in any manner. The petition for rehearing is denied.