ALLEGATION OF SLANDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19717, 17 August 1927, Page 14

ALLEGATION OF SLANDER.

CASE BROUGHT BY DOCTOR. CLAIM FOR £SOO DAMAGES. [BY TELEGRAPH. PRESS ASSOCIATION.] DUNEDIN, Tuesday. A case of alleged slander in which doctors were the parties was commenced in the Supreme Court before Mr. Justice Sim and a jury. Dr. James Garfield Stewart, of Milton, claimed £SOO from Dr. A. C. Biggs, superintendent of the South Otago Hospital. The alleged slander was contained in the remarks made to the board and a deputation stating that a woman living in the neighbourhood of Milton was, expecting confinement and developed mumps, and that plaintiff tried to get her into private maternity homes at Balclutha, Milton and Dunedin, although suffering from a highly infectious disease. The statement of. claim set out that these allegations had been published to tlie injury of plaintiff in his profession and reputation. The defence was that the words were spoken by defendant in the discharge of his dutv as superintendent of the hospital, and at the board's request, without malice and in reply to a deputation's request for information wbv the hoard had declined to reinstate plaintiff as a medical, surgeon in the Milton Hospital. The case was not concluded.