34 S.E.2d 624 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1945
1. Where a general demurrer to the petition is overruled and this court reverses that ruling, the right to amend is not terminated by the judgment of this court, and the issues involved have not become res judicata; *615 thereafter the suit can be amended or dismissed by the plaintiff at any time before the remittitur from this court has been made the judgment of the court below, and, if dismissed, can be renewed at any time within the period allowed under the Code, § 3-808. 2. The renewal suit stated a cause of action for libel.
2. The plaintiff has in this suit overcome the discrepancies in her earlier petition by alleging that the proceedings reported by her were a part of the advertisement referred to in the allegedly libelous article written in the Atlanta Journal, and by setting forth the entire advertisement, which advertisement as a whole was not before this court in its earlier consideration of the case. While neither the headlines, nor the caption of the article, nor the article itself, relating to the report of the meeting by the plaintiff, in and of itself, could be said to be libelous, it is a question for the jury to decide whether the two taken together constitute a libel as alleged, and whether they charged the plaintiff, in the sense in which they were understood by those reading them, with having written untruthful or false minutes and having made an affidavit that they were true when they in fact were not. The statement by Dr. Cocking that he did not seek to "impugn any improper motives to Miss Moore," and that there might naturally be some variance between a transcript made immediately after taking the notes and one made three and a half years later does not, in view of the particular words of the caption or headline, render the statements innocent as a matter of law. There is nothing libelous in the statement, "He said he didn't know anything about a report that the stenographer is now working with a kinsman of Governor Talmadge."
For the foregoing reasons the judgment of the trial court must be and is
Reversed. Sutton, P. J., and Parker, J., concur.