Court Opinion

ID: 9518857
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:03:49.856791+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:28.049447
License: Public Domain

Boslaugh, J.,
dissenting in part and concurring in part.
Our Constitution provides that in all trials for libel, “the truth when published with good motives, and for justifiable ends, shall be a sufficient defense.” Art. I, § 5, Constitution of Nebraska. This provision has been generally construed to mean that the burden is upon the defendant to establish both the truth of the statement and that it was published with good motives and for justifiable ends.
In Wertz v. Sprecher, 82 Neb. 834, 118 N. W. 1071, it was noted that prior to 1875 the Constitution did not refer to truth as a defense in civil actions, and that it was unnecessary to provide that truth alone should be a defense in civil suits for libel. This court then said: “Now, if it was not the intention of the men who formed the constitutional convention in 1875 to compel the defendant in civil as well as criminal cases, if he attempted to justify, to prove good motives and justifiable ends, as well as the truth of his charges in publishing a. libel, the *38inclusion of the words ‘both civil’ in the later constitution was and is senseless and surplusage.”
In 1957, the Legislature amended section 25-840, R. R. S. 1943, to provide that in libel cases: “The truth in itself and alone shall be a complete defense unless it shall be proved by the plaintiff that the publication was made with actual malice. Actual malice shall not be inferred or presumed from publication.”
The effect of the opinion of the court in this case is to abandon the previous construction of the constitutional provision and adopt a construction which would have been appropriate under the provision contained in the Constitution of 1866.
But if now there is no burden of proof upon a defendant in a libel case to establish that the publication was: with good motives and for justifiable ends, then the judgment should be reversed because the instructions of the court placed that burden upon the defendant.