WILLIAMSON v. FREER
In the Common Pleas, April 20, 1874.
Reported in Law Reports, 9 Common Pleas, 393.
This was an action for a libel, tried before Brett, J., at the last assizes for Leicester. The facts were as follows: The plaintiff was employed as assistant in the shop of the defendant, a shoemaker, at Leicester. The defendant having accused the plaintiff of robbing him of money, sent two post-office telegrams to her father, who resided in London, to inform him of his suspicions. The first telegram was to this effect: “Come at once to Leicester, if you wish to save your child from appearing before a magistrate.” The second was as follows: “Your child will be given in charge of the police unless you reply and come to-day. She has taken money out of the till.”
The charge was persisted in down to the trial; but there was no evidence to support it. It did not appear that, beyond the officials of the post-office, through whose hands the telegrams passed, they had come to the knowledge of any other persons than the father, mother, and brother of the plaintiff.
The learned judge left it to the jury to say whether the statements were libellous, and whether it was reasonable to transmit them by telegraph rather than by post.
The jury found that the statements were libellous, and that it was not reasonable to send them by telegraph, and they returned a verdict for the plaintiff, damages £100.
O’Malley, Q. C. (with him Merewether), pursuant to leave, moved to enter a verdict for the defendant.[[496]]
Brett, J. I reserved the point because I thought it was a very important one. It is whether, where a communication is to be made to a relative of a person against whom a charge is preferred, which communication would be privileged if sent by letter in the ordinary way the privilege is not lost by sending it in the form of a telegram,—whether a communication in that form can be said to be made to one person, when in point of fact it passes through several hands before it reaches its ultimate destination. Privilege is not wanted unless the publication is libellous. The question then is whether the character of an innocent person is to be destroyed because the libeller thinks fit to send the libel in this shape rather than in a sealed letter. I do not mean to say that there was malice in fact here. But I agree with my Lord that sending the messages by telegraph when they might have been sent by letter was evidence of malice. I desire, however, to put this higher. I think that a communication which would be privileged if made by letter becomes unprivileged if sent through the telegraph office, because it is necessarily communicated to all the clerks through whose hands it passes. It is like the case of a libel contained on the back of a post card.[[497]] It was never meant by the Legislature that these facilities for postal and telegraphic communication should be used for the purpose of more easily disseminating libels. Where there is such a publication, it avoids the privilege, because it is communicated through unprivileged persons. As to the damages, I am not at all disposed to think them excessive. The charge against the plaintiff was of a very grave character. It was made with considerable severity, and it was insisted upon even down to the trial.
Rule refused.[[498]]
MARKS v. BAKER
Supreme Court, Minnesota, July 25, 1881.
Reported in 28 Minnesota Reports, 162.
Berry, J. This is an action for libel. The plaintiff was, at the times hereinafter mentioned, treasurer of the city of Mankato, and, as such, custodian of the moneys, and from April 1 to 6, 1880, a candidate for re-election to the same office, at an election fixed for the latter day. The defendants were residents and tax-payers of the city, and publishers thereat of the Mankato Free Press, a weekly newspaper, and as such they published therein, on April 2, 1880, the article complained of, in which, as the plaintiff claims in his complaint, they charged and intended to charge the defendant as treasurer with embezzling city funds. It is alleged in the complaint that the matter charged as libellous was of and concerning the plaintiff in his office—that it was false and defamatory, and that the publication was malicious. The answer denies malice, all intent to injure or defame plaintiff, any intention on defendants’ part to charge him with embezzlement, and alleges that defendants published the article complained of, as a communication, solely for the purpose of calling the attention of the public to the matter therein referred to, viz., to a discrepancy in certain official reports tending to show that the plaintiff had failed to charge himself with the full amount of city funds which he had received from the county treasury, and with the view of obtaining an inquiry as to the cause of such discrepancy. The answer further alleges that “the publication was made in good faith; ... that defendants believed that there was reasonable cause for the publication;” and “that they were then and there discharging a sacred and moral obligation as ... editors and publishers.” The reply puts these allegations of the answer in issue. Upon the trial it was admitted that, notwithstanding the discrepancy, (which in fact, existed) the plaintiff had accounted for the full sum received by him as city treasurer from the county treasurer, so that the defendants’ charge or insinuation to the contrary was false.