
    Blakeslee v. Hughes, et al.
    
      Libel—Defense—Justification—Evide:ice—Co7npetency of.
    
    The plaintiff’s action was for a libel; the defense was justification. On the trial of the action in the court of common pleas, that court, over the defendant’s objection, permitted the plaintiff to give in chief to the jury, evidence of his good character. The circuit court, solely on account of this ruling of the couit of common pleas, reversed the judgment, and remanded the cause íor a new trial. Held: That the circuit court did not err.
    (Decided June 20, 1893.)
    
      Error to the Circuit Court of Defiance county.
    The plaintiff in error brought an action in the court of common pleas of Defiance county to recover damages for an alleged libelous article that the defendants in error caused to be published in a newspaper reflecting on his character for honesty and veracity. The defendants filed separate answers in the action, setting up the circumstances of a transaction which they claimed established the substantial truth of the publication. Upon the trial the plaintiff in error introduced to the jury in chief, over the objection of the defendants in error, evidence of his character for “truth, veracity, honesty and fair dealing.” The jury rendered a verdict in his favor, upon which the court of common pleas gave him judgment. This judgment was reversed by the circuit court, on the ground that the court of common pleas erred in permitting the plaintiff in error to give, in chief, evidence of his good character; to reverse this judgment of the circuit court, the present proceedings were instituted.
    
      Harris & Cameron and Thompson & Far low, for plaintiff in error.
    
      Coulter & Griffin, J C. Ryan and Hill & Hubbard, for defendants in error.
   By the Court.

The law presumes the plaintiff’s character to be good. 1 Hilliard on Torts, sec. 63.

Notwithstanding this, some courts and authors hold, that in actions of slander and libel the plaintiff may confirm the presumption by evidence. 3 Sutherland on Damages, 655; Shroyer v. Miller, 3 W. Va., 158.

Contention is also made that as the law only presumes an average character, the plaintiff should be permittecf to establish, if he can, a character superior to that, in order to enhance the amount of his recovery. Claim is further made that the defendant in this class of cases is not injured by the plaintiff, introducing evidence of his good character in- chief, because it only tends to establish what the law would presume in the absence of the objectionable evidence. The force of this latter contention- would be greatly increased if the evidence of good character actually introduced tended to establish a character of the same degree of excellence that the law would presume, if no evidence should be given, and if it could be certainly known the plaintiff’s good character was no more forcibly presented to the minds' of the jury by the favorable opinions of his neighbors, delivered under oath in their presence, than it would have been by a silent presumption of law. At best, the contention that the plaintiff in that class of actions should be allowed to establish by evidence a character superior to that presumed by law, cannot be harmonized with the other claim that there is no error'in allowing it to go to the jury, because it only establishes what the law presumes.

Without entering into' any discussion of the principles involved in this question, w'e think the rule forbidding the introduction of such evidence in chief, has prevailed in this state from an early period in its judicial history. The rule is plain and of easy application, works no substantial injustice, and no sufficient reason has been adduced to justify its being overturned.

Judgment affirmed.  