148 Mass. 513 | Mass. | 1889
A corporation is liable in damages for the publication of a libel, as it is for its other torts. Whitfield v. South Eastern Railway, El., Bl. & El. 115. Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore Railroad v. Quigley, 21 How. 202. Samuels v. Evening Mail Association, 75 N. Y. 604, following the dissenting opinion in 9 Hun, 294. To establish its liability, the publication must be shown to have been made by its authority, or to have been ratified by it, or to have been made by one of its servants or agents in the course of the business in which he was employed.
In the present case, we think there was evidence against the defendant, upon each of these grounds, which should have been submitted to*the jury for their consideration.
It was admitted that a libellous extract from a newspaper was kept posted forty days in a conspicuous place in the defendant’s office in Boston, which was arranged especially for the sale and advertising of railroad tickets, and was in the immediate charge of one of.the defendant’s employees. The plaintiff was a railroad ticket broker doing business on the same street. The state
But theré was additional evidence of ratification of this publication by the defendant. We have the letter of the defendant’s general passenger agent, written nearly a month before the publication was discontinued, in which he declined to interfere with it. This agent “ was in general charge, on behalf of said corporation, of all the tickets and sales of tickets, for the transportation of passengers over the road of the defendant corporation and its connections, and had the general control and supervision of all the offices used for, and the agents employed by, said corporation in the sale of said tickets.” He was the representative of the corporation, to determine in its behalf what kinds of notices should be posted in its ticket offices. His determination to permit the libel to remain before the eyes of the public in the defendant’s ticket office was an act of the defendant ; and it was evidence from which, in connection with the other evidence in the case, the jury might have inferred a ratification of the original publication, and also a publication from that time, by the defendant. Baldwin v. Casella, L. R. 7 Ex. 325. Smith v. Water Commissioners, 38 Conn. 208. St. James Parish v. Newburyport & Amesbury Horse Railroad, 141 Mass. 500.
Upon the third ground, we think it was a question for the jury, on the whole evidence, whether the defendant was not responsible for the original act of Dow, without actual knowl
Exceptions sustained.