Court Opinion

ID: 9812850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:50:43.094612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:27:00.623486
License: Public Domain

BaeNhill, J.,
dissenting: That the manager of the corporate defendant was acting in the course and scope of his employment at the time complained of would seem to be supported by this record. In this conclusion I concur. However, I cannot agree that no material or prejudicial error was committed in the trial.
Slander is the speaking of defamatory words of and concerning a person in the presence and hearing of another. The defamatory language does not give rise to a cause of action unless some third party hears and understands the words used in their defamatory sense. That is, the language must be defamatory, and it must be so understood by at least one hearer. Hedgepeth v. Coleman, 183 N. C., 309.
Only one person other than plaintiff’s husband testified that he heard. He understood Little to say, “You took the package.” This is quite different from “You stole the package.” The one is slanderous per se; the other is not.
Yet the sum total of the court’s charge on the first issue was as follows :
“Slander is where words are falsely spoken which are injurious to the reputation of another. . . .
“Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, the burden of that issue (the first issue) is on the plaintiff to satisfy you by the greater weight of the evidence before you would answer that issue Yes. If the plaintiff has done so, you will answer it Yes. If the plaintiff has not done so, then you will answer it No. . . .
“It is not necessary that you find he used the exact words that she ‘stole’ the chicken. Notice the words of the issue — Did he speak of and concerning her ‘in substance the words alleged in the complaint,’ which is that she had stolen the chicken?”
The second paragraph above quoted was then repeated.
At no time, even in the statement of contentions, did the court instruct the jury that plaintiff must show that the defamatory language was *479used “in the presence and hearing of others.” Nor was the jury instructed that it must appear that the language was understood in: its defamatory sense.
There are exceptions in the record which challenge the sufficiency of this charge, and I am of the opinion that they should be sustained.
The witness who heard did not know the defamed, and he did not repeat the defamation until more than six months thereafter. The plaintiff, on the other hand, voluntarily gave currency to the charge by the institution of this action eleven days after the occurrence. Even so, the court in its charge on the issue of damages draws no distinction between repetitions of the charge traceable to Little’s utterance on the one hand and those which proximately resulted from the institution of the action on the other. Surely plaintiff cannot complain because of “talk” which resulted from her own act.
I vote for a new trial.
WiNBORNE, J., concurs in dissent.