Doubtless there are cases in which the mere presence of malice in an act done will not necessarily give a right of action, since no damage may result; and in this case, however malicious Allen’s intervention may have been, if the employers had defied Allen’s threats instead of yielding to them, the plaintiffs could not have succeeded in an action, because they would not have been injured: see Quartz Hill Co. v. Eyre, 11 Q. B. D. 674; Gibbs v. Pike, 9 M. & W. 351; Jenings v. Florence, (1857) 2 C. B. (N. S.) 467.
Lord Watson.... There is no expression in the verdict which can be held, either directly or by implication, to impeach the legality of the company’s conduct in discharging the respondents. The mere fact of an employer discharging or refusing to engage a workman does not imply or even suggest the absence of his legal right to do either as he may choose. It is true that the company is not a party to this suit; but it is also obvious that the character of the act induced, whether legal or illegal, may have a bearing upon the liability in law of the person who procured it. The whole pith of the verdict, in so far as it directly concerns the appellant, is contained in the word “maliciously,”—a word which is susceptible of many different meanings. The expression “maliciously induce,” as it occurs upon the face of the verdict, is ambiguous: it is capable of signifying that the appellant knowingly induced an act which of itself constituted a civil wrong, or it may simply mean that the appellant procured, with intent to injure the respondents, an act which, apart from motive, would not have amounted to a civil wrong; and it is, in my opinion, material to ascertain in which of these senses it was used by the jury.
Although the rule may be otherwise with regard to crimes, the law of England does not, according to my apprehension, take into account motive as constituting an element of civil wrong. Any invasion of the civil rights of another person is in itself a legal wrong, carrying with it liability to repair its necessary or natural consequences, in so far as these are injurious to the person whose right is infringed, whether the motive which prompted it be good, bad, or indifferent. But the existence of a bad motive, in the case of an act which is not in itself illegal, will not convert that act into a civil wrong for which reparation is due. A wrongful act, done knowingly and with a view to its injurious consequences, may, in the sense of law, be malicious; but such malice derives its essential character from the circumstance that the act done constitutes a violation of the law. There is a class of cases which have sometimes been referred to as evidencing that a bad motive may be an element in the composition of civil wrong; but in these cases the wrong must have its root in an act which the law generally regards as illegal, but excuses its perpetration in certain exceptional circumstances from considerations of public policy. These are well known as cases of privilege, in which the protection which the law gives to an individual who is within the scope of these considerations consists in this,—that he may with immunity commit an act which is a legal wrong and but for his privilege would afford a good cause of action against him, all that is required in order to raise the privilege and entitle him to protection being that he shall act honestly in the discharge of some duty which the law recognizes, and shall not be prompted by a desire to injure the person who is affected by his act. Accordingly, in a suit brought by that person, it is usual for him to allege and necessary for him to prove an intent to injure in order to destroy the privilege of the defendant. But none of these cases tend to establish that an act which does not amount to a legal wrong, and therefore needs no protection, can have privilege attached to it; and still less that an act in itself lawful is converted into a legal wrong if it was done from a bad motive.
[After quoting from Bowen, L. J., in Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor, and Bayley, J., in Bromage v. Prosser.]
The root of the principle is that, in any legal question, malice depends, not upon evil motive which influenced the mind of the actor, but upon the illegal character of the act which he contemplated and committed. In my opinion it is alike consistent with reason and common sense that when the act done is, apart from the feelings which prompted it, legal, the civil law ought to take no cognizance of its motive.
It does not appear to me to admit of doubt that the jury, in finding the action of the company to have been maliciously induced by the appellant, simply meant to affirm that the appellant was influenced by a bad motive, namely, an intention to injure the respondents in their trade or calling of shipwrights.
There are, in my opinion, two grounds only upon which a person who procures the act of another can be made legally responsible for its consequences. In the first place, he will incur liability if he knowingly and for his own ends induces that other person to commit an actionable wrong. In the second place, when the act induced is within the right of the immediate actor, and is therefore not wrongful in so far as he is concerned, it may yet be to the detriment of a third party; and in that case, according to the law laid down by the majority in Lumley v. Gye, 2 E. & B. 216, the inducer may be held liable if he can be shown to have procured his object by the use of illegal means directed against that third party.