DAVIS-EL v. ADAMS

<p>Appeal from St. Charles Circuit Court. — Eon. J. B. Barnett, Judge.</p> <p>(1) Defendant’s plea to the jurisdiction of the trial court should have been sustained. The construction placed upon the Missouri statutes by the lower court renders them unconstitutional and void in denying’ to the defendant the equal protection of the laws. County v. Railroad, 118 IT. S. 394; Railroad v. Ellis, 165 IT. S. 150; State v. Ashbrook, 154 Mo. 375; State v. Railroad, 195 Mo. 288; State v. Loomis, 115 Mo. 307; Hammond Co. v. Best, 91 Me. 431. (2) Plaintiff’s petition is fatally defective in that it fails to set out enough of the article complained of to enable the court to understand the sense in which the language so set out was used, and the demurrer and motion in arrest should, therefore, have been sustained. Townshend on Libel, sec. 334; Odgers on Libel (4 Ed.), 581; Cartwright v. Wright, 5 B. & A. 615; Rutherford v. Evans, 6 Bingham, 451. There being no matters of “inducement” alleged in the petition — no allegation that plaintiff was in fact either an owner, or a stockholder, or managing officer of the corporation owner — both the petition and the proofs are in this respect fatally defective. Havemeyer V. Puller, 60 How. Prac. 320; Püb. Co. v. Journal Co., 108 Mo. App. 232; Legg v. Dunleavy, 80 Mo. 558; Crystal v. Craig, 80 Mo. 367; McManus v. Jackson, 28 Mo. 56; Bundy v. Hart, 46 Mo. 460; Kenworthy v. Journal Co., 117 Mo. App. 327; Flowers v. Smith, 214 Mo. 132; Hatfield v. Sisson, 59 N. Y. Supp. 73. (3) It was admitted that the “owner” of the Delmar Race Track was a corporation. As a corporation must necessarily act through its officers and agents, this article can only mean that those managing officers and agents of the corporation, who were personally in control of said track about the 22d of June, 1905, were, in the opinion of the Attorney-General, guilty of a felony. As it was admitted that plaintiff was in Europe at that time, this article could not have been libelo