Williams v. Hill

Decided May 15, 1838

New York Supreme Court · decided 1838-05-15

This was an action of slander, tried at the New-York circuit in May, 1835, before the Hon. Ogden Edwards, one of the 'circuit judges. The plaintiff is an unmarried female. The charge against her was that she had criminal connection with a person of the other sex.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1838-05-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 16 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 1914

13 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.

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¶1By the Court,

Cowen, J.

¶2The words were proved importing direct criminal connection between the plaintiff and a man who visited her in the character of a suitor. The plaintiff’s connections forbade her visits to their houses ; she appears to have been thus ejected from the house of her uncle, John Williams, while there on a visit, by reason of the report, not to mention other like instances. Moore v. Meagher, 1 Taunt. 39, in the exchequer chamber, is in point. The very decision was that the plaintiff being cut off from the hospitality of her friends, is such legal damage as will sustain an action on the charge of incontinency. And see Starkie on slander, 266.

¶3The motion must be denied.