| Ga. | Jan 10, 1911
R. E. Howe .brought suit in the superior 'court of Lowndes county against Joseph Stump of that county, and the Garrett-Williams Company and the Bradstreet Company, nonresident corporations, to recover damages for the publication of an alleged libel. ' The defendant Stump was served, the Garrett-Williams Company was dismissed as a party defendant, and the Bradstreet Company’s agent was served by second original in Bibb county. The petitioner alleged that he was a retail liquor dealer doing business at De Soto, Georgia, the Garrett-Williams Company was a wholesale liquor dealer of Baltimore, Maryland, that sold him goods on credit, the Bradstreet Company was a .mercantile corporation of New York, engaged in the business of furnishing reports for a moneyed consideration to wholesale dealers, on which reports they would grant credit to merchants, and Stump was the travelling salesman of the Garrett-Williams Company; that the Bradstreet Company, about October 1, 1906, for a valuable consideration, furnished to the Garrett-Williams Company a written report, which was set out in hsec verba, the substance of which was to impute to the plaintiff the crime of arson; that on October 6 the Garrett-Williams Company sent the writing to its salesman, Stump, who, on October 8, at the instance of -his employers, mailed it to S. L. Sills at Americus, Georgia, who “was a wholesale liquor dealer or distributor at Americus, Georgia, and sold goods in De Soto, Georgia, and the goods of the said Garrett-Williams Company which was sold to plaintiff at De So.to, Georgia, was sold through and by the advice of the said S. L. Sills, and said report being of and concerning your petitioner, it was natural and expected that when the said Garrett-Williams Company re
Under the constitution (Civil Code, § 5872), suits against joint trespassers residing in different counties may be tried in either county. Persons who jointly publish a libel are joint trespassers within this constitutional provision. Cox v. Strickland, 120 Ga. 104 (47 S. E. 912). The demurrer raises the point that the Bradstreet Company and -the local defendant, under the allegations of the petition, did not jointly publish the alleged libel, and therefore the former could not be sued in the county of the residence of the latter. Publication of a libel is essential to a recovery. All who engage in the publication of the writing are liable as publishers; and where they jointly engage in the publication, their act is joint, and they may be jointly sued. After a"^ libel is published and subsequently the same libel is again published by an independent party, without participation by the first publisher, the republication is independent and separate from the first publication. It is an independent tort. It is no defense to the republication of a libel by one other than the first publisher that the person defamed has been given damages against the first publisher, as the damages allowed in the first action were given only for the first publication. Hunt v. Algar, 6 C. & P. 245; Creevy v. Carr, 7 C. & P. 64. If a country newspaper copy and publish a libelous article from a London newspaper, the country paper makes the article its own. Talbutt v. Clark, 2 M. & Rob. 212. Each publication of the libel by different persons constitutes 'a' separate and distinct wrong to the aggrieved party. If the original publisher does not participate in a republieation of the libel by another, he is not liable in a joint action with the second publisher. “If there are two distinct publications of the same libel, one by A separately, the other by B, two actions must be brought, one for each publication.” Newell on Slander and Libel, § 42. It may be that the’ facts attending the second publication are such as to hold the original publisher liable in an independent action for damages accruing from the republication. If it were a natural
Judgment affirmed.