Brandhove

Appellant sued -under §§ 43 and 47 (3) of Title 8 U.S.C.A. to recover damages for alleged violations of his civil rights. With one exception the defendants (appellees) are members of wha,t was known as the Tenney Committee of the California' State Senate, empowered by a resolution adopted in 1947 to inquire into un-American activities. The remaining defendant is Mayor Robinson of San Francisco. The appeal is from a judgment of dismissal for failure of the complaint to state a cause for relief.

The complaint incorporates an extensive amount of evidentiary matter, bearing for the most part upon a hearing of the Tenney Committee (hereafter referred to as the Committee) before which appellant was summoned as a witness. The pleading shows that on January 28, 1949 appellant circulated among the members of the California legislature, then in session at Sacramento, a protest against an appropriation for the continuance of the Committee’s activities. The protest, or petition as it is termed in the complaint, charged that the Committee had “used” appellant “as an instrument to smear Congressman Franck R. Havenner as a ‘Red’ when he was a candidate for Mayor of San Francisco in 1947, and…