5 Ga. App. 331 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1908
Michael, by next friend, brought suit in the city court of Albany, against Bacon and the Bacon Equipment Company, to recover damages for malicious prosecution ¿nd for false imprisonment. The defendants demurred generally to the petition. Before the hearing of the demurrer, the plaintiff struck from his petition the first count thereof, which claimed damages for malicious prosecution. The court sustained the demurrer to the second count of the petition, which claimed damages for false imprisonment, and dismissed the petition; and to this judgment the plaintiff excepts.
The suit for damages for false imprisonment was based upon the following facts: On June 26, 1907, Bacon made an affidavit before a magistrate, as a basis for a warrant for the arrest of D. A. Michael, charging that he had committed the offense of criminal libel, by maliciously procuring and causing the publication, in the Albany Daily Herald, a newspaper published at Albany, of the following interview and statement: “A few weeks ago a bulletin was placed in the shops, stating that J. McC. Hill ha'd been appointed superintendent of the Bacon Equipment Co. It was learned by the men employed in the shops that the new superintendent had been a scab in a Seaboard strike in Savannah in 1901. The machinists went out that morning, but upon receipt of a telegram affirming the charge that the new superintendent had been a scab, Mr. Bacon stated that under no conditions would he make Hill superintendent. Mr. F. W. McCabe, business agent of the
Two questions are presented by the record, for determination: (1) whether; on the allegations of the petition, a suit to recover damages for false imprisonment could be predicated; and (2) whether the affidavit sworn out against Michael as a basis for the warrant set out facts which constitute the offense of criminal libel.
Criminal libel is defined by our Penal Code, §335, as follows: “A libel is a'malicious defamation, expressed either by printing, or writing, or signs, pictures or the like, tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead, or the honesty, virtue, integrity, or reputation of one who is alive, and thereby expose him to public