LIBEL AND SLANDER - DEFAMATION OF ATTORNEY - WORDS NOT ACTIONABLE PER SE

The defendant, during the course of a public address, said of the plaintiff, an attorney: "They are throwing the bum out. The politicians . . . pick up a bum in a gin mill and send him over here to break up the audiences . . . . " Plaintiff alleges that, by innuendo, these words charge him with being a habitual drunkard, which constitutes slander per se because the words prejudiced him in his profession. Held, that the words were not actionable per se.

Weidberg v. La Guardia, 170 Misc. 374, 10 N. Y. S. (2d) 445 (1939).