Law Commons^™

Libel And Slander - Classification Of Radio Defamation - Liability Of Broadcaster, William F. Hood

Michigan Law Review

The advent of radio has added an interesting problem to the field of defamation. The chief aspects of this problem are twofold: First, should the broadcast of defamatory matter over the air be treated as libel or slander? Second, which of the several parties to a defamatory broadcast should be held responsible?

Slander Of Title - Nature Of The Action - Statute Of Limitations, Herbert R. Whiting

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff brought an action to recover damages occasioned by certain letters, alleged to be false and malicious, written by the defendant of and concerning the title to plaintiff's property. Since the letters were written more than one year prior to the commencement of the action, defendant argued that the action was barred by a clause in the local statute of limitations providing that "actions for libel and slander shall be commenced within one year after the cause of action shall have accrued." On the other hand the plaintiff asserted that the case came under the statute's two-year limitation of actions …

The Right Of Privacy, Louis Nizer

Michigan Law Review

It is only during the last half-century that the law has recognized the "right to be let alone"-the right under certain circumstances to protect one's name and physiognomy from becoming public property.

No mention of such a right will be found in the works of the great political philosophers and tract-writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries-Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Spencer, Paine. In discoursing on "natural rights," "the state of nature," "social contract," and "the inalienable rights of man," they were concerned only with the power of the state to abridge the liberties of the people. Society had not yet …

Council And Court: The Handbill Ordinances, 1889-1939, James K. Lindsay

Michigan Law Review

The extent to which a municipality may regulate or prohibit the distribution of handbills and circulars on its streets and from house to house has been thoroughly considered by the courts in the last two years. These recent cases reveal one phase of a battle historically rich and presently important to the American people. It is the thrust of a principle-the right of free speech and press-against the encroachments of municipal governing bodies concerned with the practical problem of keeping their streets clean. The municipal official sees the problem thus: "One of the small but aggravating nuisances which most cities …

Libel And Slander - Implied Representation That Plaintiff Consented To Write Her Love Story As Libel Per Se, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Plaintiff brought an action for libel against defendant for publishing in its magazine a story, which it represented as being written by plaintiff, purporting to relate indiscreet intimacies between plaintiff and a certain man. Defendant admitted the false representation of authorship, but requested a directed verdict after submitting in evidence testimony given by plaintiff in a prior law suit, in which she was said to have admitted intimacies fully as capable of bringing her into disrepute as were those published by defendant. On refusal by the court to direct a verdict, defendant excepted and appealed on the ground that the …