141 F.2d 21 - Sullivan v. Meyer — 141 F.2d 21

How this case has been cited

Cited by 23 later decisions — most recently January 1995

15 federal appellate · 3 district · 2 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

¶1Mr. George E. Sullivan, of Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. William J. Neale, of Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellant.

¶2Mr. Spencer Gordon, of Washington, D. C, for appellee.

¶3Before GRONER, Chief Justice, and EDGERTON and ARNOLD, Associate Justices.

¶4EDGERTON, Associate Justice.

¶5Appellee’s newspaper The Washington Post, in a news story about a “Nazi Probe,” said that appellant was “the author of a defeatist, anti-Jewish book.” Appellant sued appellee for libel. Appellee pleaded the defenses of truth and fair comment. Appellant’s 195-page book “The Road to Victory !” was read to the jury. The court ruled out the issue of fair comment, overruled appellee’s motion for a directed verdict, and submitted the case to the jury on the issue of truth. The verdict and judgment were for appellee.

¶6The court correctly instructed the jury that “the truth is an absolute defense in an action for libel, and if they find that ‘The Road to Victory’ was in fact a defeatist, anti-Jewish book, as those words would be understood by ordinary readers of The Washington Post, their verdict must be for the defendant.” The contents of the book, which are in the record, sufficiently support the jury’s verdict. Since that is the case, the Post’s opinion that the book was defeatist as well as anti-Jewish was at least a reasonable opinion; and since there was no evidence that the words were used in bad faith or with a bad motive, the court might very well have directed a verdict for appellee on the issue of fair comment which we think it incorrectly ruled out of the case. Potts v. Dies, 77 U.S. App. D.C. 92, 132 F.2d 734.

¶7Affirmed.