If so, it is difficult to see why fault should be found with Allen for going in their place and on their behalf and saying what they would have said themselves.
As regards the meaning of the word “induce,” I do not think the jury got much assistance. I rather gather from the summing-up that the jury were given to understand that if they thought that Allen merely represented the state of things as it was—and the feeling of the iron-men at the Regent’s Dock—they would be at liberty to answer the questions put to them about Allen in the negative. But the answer must be the other way if they thought that Allen went further, and assumed to represent the union, and to speak as if he had the power of the union at his back; that would be a threat and would amount to “inducing.” Now, I must say that I do not think it can be said that Allen did “induce” the company to discharge the plaintiffs. Certainly it cannot be truly said that he procured them to be discharged. It was not his act that prevented the company from continuing to employ them. If the whole story had been a fiction and an invention on his part I could have understood the finding of the jury. But I do not think there was any misrepresentation on Allen’s part. I do not think there was any exaggeration. Nor, indeed, was any such point made at the trial.
So we see now, I think, what the findings of the jury come to, if they are to be treated as being in accordance with the evidence. They must mean that Allen induced the company to discharge the plaintiffs, by representing to the manager, not otherwise than in accordance with the truth, the state of feeling in the yard, and the intentions of the workmen, and that he did so “maliciously,” because he must have known what the issue of his communication to the manager would be, and naturally perhaps he was not sorry to see an example made of persons obnoxious to his union. But is his conduct actionable? It would be very singular if it were. No action would lie against the company for discharging the two shipwrights. No action would lie against the iron-men for striking against them. No action would lie against the officers of the union for sanctioning such a strike. But if the respondents are right the person to answer in damages is the man who happened to be the medium of communication between the iron-men and the company,—the most innocent of the three parties concerned, for he neither set the “agitation” on foot, nor did he do anything to increase it, nor was his the order that put an end to the connection between employer and employed. It seems to me that the result would have been just the same if Edmonds had told Mr. Halkett what was going on in the yard, or if Mr. Halkett had learned it from Flood and Taylor themselves.
Even if I am wrong in my view of the evidence and the verdict, if the verdict amounts to a finding that Allen’s conduct was malicious in every sense of the word, and that he procured the dismissal of Flood and Taylor, that is, that it was his act and conduct alone which caused their dismissal, and if such a verdict were warranted by the evidence, I should still be of opinion that judgment was wrongly entered for the respondents. I do not think that there is any foundation in good sense or in authority for the proposition that a person who suffers loss by reason of another doing or not doing some act which that other is entitled to do or to abstain from doing at his own will and pleasure, whatever his real motive may be, has a remedy against a third person who, by persuasion or some other means not in itself unlawful, has brought about the act or omission from which the loss comes, even though it could be proved that such person was actuated by malice towards the plaintiff, and that his conduct, if it could be inquired into, was without justification or excuse.
The case may be different where the act itself to which the loss is traceable involves some breach of contract or some breach of duty, and amounts to an interference with legal rights. There the immediate agent is liable, and it may well be that the person in the background who pulls the strings is liable too, though it is not necessary in the present case to express any opinion on that point.
But if the immediate agent cannot be made liable, though he knows what he is about, and what the consequences of his action will be, it is difficult to see on what principle a person less directly connected with the affair can be made responsible unless malice has the effect of converting an act not in itself illegal or improper into an actionable wrong. But if that is the effect of malice, why is the immediate agent to escape? Above all, why is he to escape when there is no one else to blame and no one else answerable? And yet many cases may be put of harm done out of malice without any remedy being available at law. Suppose a man takes a transfer of a debt with which he has no concern for the purpose of ruining the debtor, and then makes him bankrupt out of spite, and so intentionally causes him to lose some benefit under a will or settlement,—suppose a man declines to give a servant a character because he is offended with the servant for leaving,—suppose a person of position takes away his custom from a country tradesman in a small village merely to injure him on account of some fancied grievance not connected with their dealings in the way of buying and selling,—no one, I think, would suggest that there could be any remedy at law in any of those cases. But suppose a customer, not content with taking away his own custom, says something not slanderous or otherwise actionable or even improper in itself to induce a friend of his not to employ the tradesman any more. Neither the one nor the other is liable for taking away his own custom. Is it possible that the one can be made liable for inducing the other not to employ the person against whom he has a grudge? If so, a fashionable dressmaker might now and then, I fancy, be plaintiff in a very interesting suit. The truth is, that questions of this sort belong to the province of morals rather than to the province of law. Against spite and malice the best safeguards are to be found in self-interest and public opinion. Much more harm than good would be done by encouraging or permitting inquiries into motives when the immediate act alleged to have caused the loss for which redress is sought is in itself innocent or neutral in character, and one which anybody may do or leave undone without fear of legal consequences. Such an inquisition would, I think, be intolerable, to say nothing of the probability of injustice being done by juries in a class of cases in which there would be ample room for speculation and wide scope for prejudice.
In order to prevent any possible misconstruction of the language I have used, I should like to add that in my opinion the decision of this case can have no bearing on any case which involves the element of oppressive combination. The vice of that form of terrorism commonly known by the name of “boycotting,” and other forms of oppressive combination, seems to me to depend on considerations which are, I think, in the present case, conspicuously absent.