Wright

This is an appeal by defendant from a judgment, following a verdict, entered against him in favor of plaintiff in a joint action for malicious prosecution and slander. The complaint contained four causes of action, three for malicious prosecution growing out of the arrest and trial of the plaintiff upon a charge of embezzlement and the fourth for slander growing'out of statements alleged to have been made by the defendant in the courtroom of a justice of the peace who was conducting the preliminary hearing of the plaintiff upon the embezzlement complaint. Plaintiff was nonsuited on the second and third causes. The jury awarded him damages in the sum of six thousand dollars, with nothing in the verdict to indicate what portion was allowed on each cause of action or what portion was allowed for either compensatory or punitive damages.

Various grounds for reversal have been urged by appellant, the most patent objections going to the error of the trial court in instructing the jury. [1] Upon the cause of action for slander the court, after instructing the .jury that the words charged as having been used were slanderous per se and that the first duty of the jury was to determine…