Belli v. Orlando Daily Newspapers, Inc.
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
389 F.2d 579 (5th Cir. 1967)
Attorney Melvin Belli (plaintiff) spoke, unpaid, at a Florida Bar Association panel, with the Bar covering his hotel costs. A reporter for a newspaper owned by Orlando Daily Newspapers (defendant) published a gossip-column story falsely claiming Belli ran up large clothing bills and charged them to his hotel room, embellishing the account. Belli sued for slander and libel; the district court dismissed for failure to state a claim, and Belli appealed.
Whether it is proper for a court to resolve, without submitting to a jury, whether a published statement is defamatory when the statement is reasonably susceptible to two different interpretations, one defamatory and one not.