Roemer

Defendant Retail Credit Company appeals for the second time from a jury verdict finding it guilty of libel and awarding plaintiff Paul Roemer, Jr., both compensatory and punitive damages. Judgment for plaintiff at the first trial of this action was reversed because of an erroneous instruction pertaining to the subject of malice (Roemer v. Retail Credit Co. (1970) 3 Cal.App.3d 368 [ 83 Cal.Rptr. 540 ].)

Mr. Roemer is a licensed insurance broker. Defendant is a mercantile agency engaged in the business of providing commercial investigative reports to subscribers—many of whom are insurance underwriters who request such reports in determining whether to license applicant brokers with their companies.

Plaintiff commenced this action in 1965 after discovering that defendant had prepared and submitted investigative reports about him to four insurance companies. Falsity of the reports was admitted by defendant (Roemer, supra, p. 370 ). At both trials of the case, the sole defense was that of the qualified privilege provided by Civil Code, section 47, subdivision 3.

On this appeal defendant contends that: 1) the award of punitive damages must be set aside because (a) the jury…