COURT OF APPEAL.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLV, Issue 159, 12 July 1911, Page 8

COURT OF APPEAL.

THE MASSEY LIBEL CASE

[nrEas association.]

WELLINGTON, July 12. Before the Court of Appeal in the Massey-New Zealand Times case Mr H. D.Bell, K.C., contended that the jury, from Judge Chapman's sum-ming-up, might have- thought that Mr Massey, although connected in some- way with the distribution of -tli© Black pamphlet, might yet not "be guilty of a mean a,nd despicable act. Mr Bell also complained that Judge Chapman distinguished between ordinary libel and a cartoon, saying that if it was merely, an ordinary political cartoon it was not necessarily a libel, although they found that the figure represented^ Mr Massey. He submitted' that if _a class is libelled, and an individual singled out and depicted as a memher of such a class, it was a libel on that individual. This had not been made clear to the jury, and, therefore, amounted to a misdirection, likely to mislead the jury, and was a ground for a new trial. He quoted authorities supporting his argument.