48 Ga. App. 273 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1934
J. W. Farmer and his wife, Mrs. J. W. Farmer, each in a separate and distinct suit against the Atlanta Journal Company, alleged that a publication appearing in a newspaper published by the defendant was libelous to the plaintiff in that it “imputed negro blood” to the plaintiff, who was a white person, by its reference to Thomas Farmer, who was in fact a son of the plaintiff and a white person, as being a negro. The alleged publication reads as follows: “Highway Employees Must Face Trial For Chained Man’s Death. Two employees of the State Highway Department must answer td the Whitfield superior court for the death of a negro convict they chained to a telephone pole last summer, the Georgia Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. J. Fred Killian and M. A. Wells were indicted in Whitfield county on charge of involuntary manslaughter, growing out of the death by sunstroke of Thomas Farmer, a convict working on a public road. It was charged in the indictment that the two chained the negro to a telephone pole after he had fallen to the ground under the heat, the thermometer registered 100 degrees on June 30, 1931, and the negro died of sunstroke about thirty minutes later. Wells filed a demurrer to the indictment, which was overruled by Judge Claude Pittman, of the Whitfield superior court, who ruled that the highway ■ department employees had no legal supervision over convicts. The Court of Appeals upheld that ruling.”
This publication nowhere mentions the name of either of the plaintiffs, or that Thomas Farmer, mentioned therein, was in any way related to the plaintiffs. The publication makes no reference to either of the plaintiffs, either directly or indirectly, and no person reading the publication could ascertain from its contents that either of the plaintiffs was referred to, or was intended by the publisher to be referred to. Odgers on Libel and Slander (5th ed., page 23) states that “there must be a definite imputation upon a definite person; and that person must be the plaintiff. A can not,
The petitions failed to set out causes of action and the court erred' in overruling the general demurrers thereto.
Judgment in each case reversed.