(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The Hungarian courts will soon have to decide on the interesting question whether or not newspapers can be held responsible for damages accruing to any of their readers through reports they published.
Eugen Weinreb, a Jewish resident of Miskolcz, has started suit against several newspapers which published a misleading report that an inheritance of $20,000,000 awaits Mr. Weinreb in the United States, due to the death of one of his relatives who emigrated to America fifty years ago.
Upon reading the report, Mr. Weinreb sold his possessions and proceeded to the United States, where he discovered that the “rich relative” who had lived in Passaic, New Jersey, had left an automobile repair shop valued at $2,000. It also developed that there are 183 claimants to the inheritance. Mr. Weinreb was compelled to return home penniless.
The case will be heard in Budapest in October.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
