Hartridge v. Savannah News-Press, Inc.
Hartridge v. Savannah News-Press, Inc.
Opinion of the Court
This is the second appearance of this case before this court. For a full statement of the pleadings prior to their amendment after the former appearance, see Savannah News-Press, Inc. v. Hartridge, 104 Ga. App. 22 (120 SE2d 918), and especially with reference to the matter now before the court that portion of the opinion dealing with count 2 of the petition beginning on page 26.
After the case was reversed by this court and before the remit
The amendment was allowed subject to objection and demurrer. The defendant filed renewed demurrers and demurred generally and specially to the amendment and to the petition as amended. The trial court sustained the general demurrers and dismissed the action and the exception here is to that judgment.
It is elementary that in passing on a general demurrer well pleaded allegations of fact contained in the petition must be taken as true. Code § 81-304. Mizell v. Byington, 73 Ga. App. 872, 875 (38 SE2d 692). “The simplest test of the sufficiency of a petition against general demurrer is whether the defendant can admit all that is alleged and still escape liability. Ga. R. & Banking Co. v. Rayford, 115 Ga. 937 (42 SE 234); Pullman Palace Car Co. v. Martin, 92 Ga. 161 (18 SE 364).” Harvey v. Zell, 87 Ga. App. 280, 284 (Id) (73 SE2d 605). In passing on a general demurrer and in construing the allegations of a petition, while it is true that the court should construe ambiguous allegations against the pleader, this does not mean that such construction should be a strained, unnatural, or illogical one. The amendment to the petition in this case plainly and distinctly alleges that the article in question was not a fair, accurate or honest report of the court proceeding involved and that it was false and libelous and not truthful in three specific particulars. These allegations clearly take the case out of the category of a privileged publication. Shiver v. Valdosta Press, 82 Ga. App. 406, 410 (61 SE2d 221). The defendant cannot admit the truth of these allegations and escape liability.
While it may be conceded, as urged and argued by the defendant in error, that the allegations of part (B) of the amendment to the petition outlined above, relate, not to what transpired on the trial of the case nor to what the testimony was on the trial, but to what the plaintiff contends were the true facts of the incident, and that this specification of falsity, standing alone, would not be sufficient to sustain an action for libel in the reporting of a judicial proceeding, yet this is but one of three specifications of falsity, and the other two clearly allege that
It may be that this whole case is, as is inferred by counsel for the defendant in their argument before this court, a “tempest in a tea pot,” and that the plaintiff has blown up what was intended to be a mere humorous story into something out of all proportion to that which the facts of the case justify. Nevertheless, the allegations of the plaintiff’s petition make a case of libel in the publication of false and defamatory matter about him which, as alleged in the petition, might tend to injure his reputation and expose him to public contempt or ridicule. Code § 105-701. As we have said, whether such publication was libelous in fact is a jury question and whether the'plaintiff is entitled to recover any damages, and, if so, what amount, are also jury questions that ought not to be decided on general demurrer unless reasonable men cannot differ as to the effect of the publication. It follows that the amended petition stated a cause of action, and the trial court erred in sustaining the general demurrer and in dismissing it.
Judgment reversed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.