The Press: Points in Libel

Retraction. Of the Press’s many defense weapons against libel suits, Retraction is only one. Rarely offered in court as a complete defense, it often serves to reduce damages, both compensatory and punitive.* Last week the appellate division of the New York Supreme Court took from Retraction much of its potency, by ruling that it could not be accepted in mitigation of compensatory damages. In so ruling the court upheld the appeal of William H. Kehoe from a verdict of 6¢ damages against the New York Herald Tribune.†He had sued for a compensatory $100,000. In 1926 the Herald Tribune published a story stating that one William Kehoe, onetime Manhattan corporation counsel and city official who had been convicted in a milk graft scandal (TIME, July 26, 1926), had purchased an estate at Garrison, N. Y. Two days later William Kehoe informed the Herald Tribune he had made no such purchase. The newspaper sought the true purchaser, found him five days afterward to be William H. Kehoe, an assistant corporation counsel, but NOT a city official and NOT the Milk-Graft Kehoe; promptly offered and promptly printed a retraction. In March 1927, William H. Kehoe sued for libel. Judge charged jury that it might consider the Herald Tribune’s retraction in fixing damages. Result: the 6¢ verdict. Said Appellate Justice Francis Martin last week: “Retractions are often dilatory, offensive, and ineffective. … In a case where . . . the article was grossly libelous and the plaintiff a man of excellent reputation . . . there should be a verdict for substantial damages. … A verdict for 6¢ in this case can be accounted for only by reason of the rule of damages enunciated by the trial court. . . . Judgment . . . reversed. . . . New trial.” Wrong Picture. In Cuyahoga county, Ohio, last fortnight a Court of Appeals cleared the Cleveland Press of a charge of libel in mistakenly printing the photograph of a person other than the one described in the accompanying news text. Said the court: “There can be no damage because the language itself eliminates the plaintiff from any connection with . . the picture.”

* Compensatory damages for actual loss of business, employment, etc., resulting from the defamatory publication. Punitive damages: additional recovery, on grounds of malice or gross negligence, to punish the offender and render mental and moral satisfaction to the victim.† The 6¢ verdict, awarded where the plaintiff’s technical rights have been violated without considerable material damage, has precedent in old English law. A usual award in such cases was threepence, the smallest silver coin, U.S. money equivalent: 6¢