Opinion by
On December 6, 1965, the Board of Supervisors of Westtown Township, Chester County, held a public meeting in which it appears there occurred a discussion about a proposed apartment building project. During the course of the argumentation, Milton Stokes, chairman of the Supervisors made the remark: “We .don’t want anything to happen like Hunters Run. ■They look like chicken coops.”
Stokes here was referring to apartment buildings owned by Hunters Run, Inc., 46% of whose stock was owned by Scott-Taylor, Inc., the prеsident of which is Eugene I. Taylor.
Eugene I. Taylor felt himself tremendously aggrieved by Stokes’s lively charactеrization of a project of which he was the builder and developer. Thus, with Scott-Taylor, Inc., he brоught a suit in trespass against Milton Stokes charging him with libel and slander, averring that Stokes made his statement maliciously, knowing it to be untrue and intending it to injure him and his company.
The defendant filed preliminary objections in thе form of a demurrer which were sustained by the court. The plaintiffs appealed.
It is apparent from the record that the plaintiff Eugene I. Taylor is a person of sensitivity, a trait not to be treatеd lightly and one which makes excellent substance in the pillar of good character. Even so, Mr. Tаylor must know that there is a great deal of unkindness in the world and considerably more loose talk. If evеry person who is offended in the manner indicated here, were to run to court for balm for his injured feelings, there would not be enough courthouses in the land to accommodate the resulting litigation. There must be more than an abrasion of sentiment before the law requires that the courts tender theraрeutic treatment and surgical attention.
*428
It is not enough that the victim of the “slings and arrows of outrageоus fortune”, he embarrassed or annoyed, he must have suffered that kind of harm which has grievously fractured his stаnding in the community of respectable society. We said in
McAndrew v. Scranton Repub. Pub. Co.,
To allow a recovery in a case of this kind would be to seriously infringe on the right of free speech. Certainly Milton Stokes had the right to express his view of Hunters Run. He chose to use a synonym, instеad of describing the buildings in any technical, architectural language. He said the houses “look like сhicken coops.” We do not see that this, in itself, casts any reflection on Mr. Taylor’s abilities as а builder and developer. The chicken coop of today is not the small, ill-kept, mucky shanty of two or three decades ago. Today chicken coops, like dog kennels, horse stables, сow barns and even bird houses are often large airy structures of impeccable cleanliness, shining elegance, and attractive architectural design, as appealing to the eye as they are unoffending to the nose.
*429 It is not evident how Taylor conld possibly have been hurt by Stokes’ extеmporaneous characterization. Indeed, it is even possible that many persons, out of сuriosity, would want to go see the Hunters Run project, who, otherwise, would not have been interested. Thеre, they would see that, no matter on what pretentious scale a modern chicken coop could be built, it still could not measure up to the good-looking habitations occupying Hunters Run. In the end, the plaintiffs could have benefited rather than have been hurt by the defendant’s fowl, and not foul, outburst.
Milton Stokes evidently does not like the Hunters Run houses and he exaggeratedly called them chicken сoops. This did not accord Eugene Taylor the right to sue him for slander any more than Stokes would havе had the right to sue Taylor if Taylor had exaggeratedly referred to the Hunters Run houses as surpassing the architectural grandeur of the Palace of Versailles or the Buckingham Palace.
Clarity in the communication of ideas is improved and very frequently enlivened by the use of appropriatе synonyms and metaphors. Thus, the plaintiffs are not to be offended if their lawsuit is referred to as a temрest in a teapot, a hurricane in a fish bowl, or a Pickett’s Charge in a chicken coop.
Judgment affirmed.