What Headlines Can Say

WARRANT FOR PASTOR IN FUR THEFTS; LOOT CACHED IN ORGAN AT PARK FALLS.

So ran a headline in the Milwaukee Journal year ago. When Rev. B. F. Schoenfeld, pastor of the Congregational Church at Park Falls, Wis. read that headline, he boiled with rage. It referred to his church. And he was sure that anyone reading the headline would believe that he was accused of larceny. To be sure, the news story made it clear that someone else had stolen the furs from the organ loft, where they had been secreted. And the man arrested for the theft revealed that two of the skins were not yet dry, indicating they had been trapped out of season. It was also made clear that Pastor Schoenfeld, who was known to trade in furs as a sideline to preaching, had been served with a warrant for possession of "illegal" furs, not for stealing. The truth of all this Pastor Schoenfeld did not contest, but nevertheless he filed a libel suit for $100,000, protesting the headline. A jury refused it. The pastor appealed.

Last week the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that a headline alone cannot be made the cause of a libel action unless it commits a complete libel in itself, and definitely identifies the libelled person. Otherwise, judgment must be based upon the entire article. Said the court: "Even assuming that [the headline] is susceptible of the meaning that some pastor at Park Falls had been named in a larceny warrant, there is nothing in these headlines to identify the plaintiff as being such pastor. It is well settled that defamatory words must refer to some ascertained or ascertainable person and that that person must be the . . . plaintiff."

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