Want of chastity (as applied to women, at all events) or adultery (charged on either man or woman); the publication of the obituary of a person known to the writer to be living; a charge that a member of Congress was a "misrepresentative" and a groveling office-seeker; that a juror agreed with another juror to rest the determination of the damages in a case upon a game of checkers; characterizing a verdict of a jury as "infamous" and charging the jurors with having done injustice to their oaths; stating in the criticism of a book that the motives of the author are dishonorable or disreputable.
The illustrations of this character might be multiplied indefinitely, but these cover the general range of libelous expressions when personally applied to an individual.
Imputations on character in allegory or irony may amount to a libel.
Imputing to a person the qualities of a frozen snake in the fable; heading an article in regard to a lawyer's sharp practices, "An Honest Lawyer."
The general rule is that it is libelous per se to impute to a person in his official capacity, profession, trade or business any kind of fraud, dishonesty, misconduct, incapacity or unfitness—any imputation, in fact, which would tend to prevent him deriving that pecuniary reward from a legitimate business which otherwise he would have obtained.
It has been held actionable to publish of a butcher that he used false weights; of a jeweler that he was a "cozening knave" who sold a sapphire for a diamond; of a brewer that he makes and sells unwholesome beer or uses filthy water in the malting of grain for brewing; of a tradesman that he adulterates the article he sells; of a schoolmaster that he is an "ignoramus" on the subject he pretends to teach; of a clergyman that he is immoral, or "preaches lies" or is a "drunkard" or "perjurer"; of an attorney that he offered himself as a witness in order to divulge the secrets of his client, or that he "betrayed his client," or "would take a fee from both sides," or that he "deserves to be struck off the roll"; of a physician that he is an "empiric," or "mountebank," or "quack," or "vends quack medicines"; of a mechanic that he is ignorant of his trade; of a judge that he lacks capacity and has abandoned the common principles of truth; and of anyone in public office of a charge of malfeasance or want of capacity to fulfill its duties.
So also personal criticism of an author might go so far as to injure him in his business as an author and come within the rule. And so of any other occupation from which the injured person derives pecuniary benefit.
CHARGING WITH A CRIME
It is hardly necessary, except for completeness, to add that to charge a person with any crime brings the publication within the definition of libel.
If matter libelous per se is published falsely concerning a person he is presumed to have suffered loss without proving the specific amount or the manner of loss, the amount of damages being found by the jury in accordance with the circumstances of the case and various legal rules.