Court Opinion

ID: 9650748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:50:52.873303+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:25.894799
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent for the reason that in my opinion, the ground upon which the reversal is based was not raised in the trial court, and was not argued in the appellant’s brief here.
Section 62 — 2—2, Utah Code Annotated, 1943, defines libel as follows: “A libel is a malicious defamation, expressed either by printing or by signs or pictures or the like, tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead, or to impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue or reputation, or publish the natural defects of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him to public hatred, contempt or ridicule.”
The language purporting to describe the physical characteristics or natural defects of the plaintiff, Stokes, was pleaded in his second amended complaint. A motion to strike was lodged against that complaint, but that language was not challenged. The exception to the instruction was not on the ground that such language would not expose Stokes to ridicule, but on the ground that there was no basis in the evidence for finding that the defendant “had maliciously ridiculed” Stokes. In other words, that there was no basis in the evidence for a finding of malice, not that the language would not expose Stokes to ridicule.
In the brief, counsel for the defendant do not argue that the language used would not-expose Stokes to ridicule, but that truth was erroneously excluded as a defense, and that the publication of the natural defects of a person do not constitute libel unless they are “either false or grossly exaggerated.”
It seems clear to me that truth is no defense under the statute to the publication of natural defects of a person which thereby exposes such person to ridicule. The words “publish the natural defects of one” clearly import the publication of the truth. The statute makes it a libel so to do if the publication is malicious, and the language will expose the person concerning whom the words are published to contempt or ridicule.
The error, if any, is not, in my opinion, of such a substantial character that we should notice it where it was not properly brought to the attention of the court at the trial below, nor argued here.
Accordingly, I would affirm.