Court Opinion

ID: 9628643
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:27:50.197196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:09.355519
License: Public Domain

Donworth, J.
(dissenting) — If the two sentences in the third paragraph of the published article had been in separate paragraphs, I would have agreed with the holding of the majority that the news story was not capable of a defamatory meaning. However, a paragraph is generally considered to be a rhetorical unit dealing with a particular point of the subject, or a grouping of one or more sentences dealing with a single topic and closely related to each other. (Webster’s New International Dictionary (2d ed.)).
Because of the unfortunate paragraphing of the article, I think that a reasonable person, reading the news story, might infer that the person named in the first sentence of the third paragraph was responsible for the reported and *216hitherto unsolved similar crimes referred to in the second sentence of that paragraph. The publication is to be measured not so much by its effect, when subjected to the critical analysis of a mind trained in the law, as by the natural and probable effect upon the mind of the average reader. MacLeod v. Tribune Publishing Co., 52 Cal. (2d) 536, 546, 343 P. (2d) 36 (1959); Yelle v. Cowles Publishing Co., 46 Wn. (2d) 105, 110, 278 P. (2d) 671, 53 A. L. R. (2d) 1 (1955); Ward v. Painters’ Local Union, 41 Wn. (2d) 859, 864, 252 P. (2d) 253 (1953); Gaffney v. Scott Publishing Co., 35 Wn. (2d) 272, 277, 212 P. (2d) 817 (1949).
The case being before the trial court on a demurrer to the complaint, the plaintiff was entitled to the most favorable inferences that could be drawn therefrom. Yelle v. Cowles Publishing Co., supra. Therefore, whether the readers of the news story could reasonably have understood that these attempted assaults and robberies of elderly women were being imputed to the plaintiff was a question to be determined by a jury under proper instructions of the court.
As supporting authority, we need but to restate the quotation from the Restatement of Torts so recently quoted in Purvis v. Bremer’s, Inc., 54 Wn. (2d) 743, 344 P. (2d) 705 (1959):
“ ‘(1) The court determines whether a communication is capable of a defamatory meaning.
“ ‘ (2) The jury determines whether a communication, capable of a defamatory meaning, was so understood by its recipient.’ ” 3 Restatement, Torts, 304, § 614.
See, also, MacLeod v. Tribune Publishing Co., supra.
If the jury should conclude, under proper instructions, that the news story was understood by its recipients as having such defamatory meaning, the libelous inference would necessarily be that the plaintiff was guilty of the criminal offenses of attempted assaults and robberies; and damage from such a libel is presumed, constituting it libel per se, hence no allegation of special damage was necessary. Purvis v. Bremer’s, Inc., supra. Therefore, in my opinion, the action should not have been dismissed.
*217The judgment of dismissal should be reversed, and the cause remanded for trial.
Finley and Rosellini, JJ., concur with Donworth, J.