Odger's English Common Law

408 PRIVATE RIGHTS OF ACTION.
production, exposing its follies and errors and holding up the author to
ridicule, will not be deemed a libel, provided it does not exceed the
limits of fair and candid criticism ; and a comment of this description
every one has a right to publish, although the author may suffer a loss from
it. In such a case, although there be damnum, there is no injuria ; and
even the loss is that which a party criticised ought to sustain, inasmuch as
it is presumably the loss of fame and profits to which he was not fairly
entitled. 1
It is otherwise if an attack be made on the character of the
writer unconnected with his publication.
Again, an action for seduction is in oub law founded upon a fiction ; the
basis of this action, when brought even by a father to recover damages for
the seduction of his danghter, has " been uniformly placed from the earliest
times not upon the seduction itself, which is the wrongful act of the
defendant, but upon the loss of service of (he daughter, in which service "
the parent "is supposed to have a legal right or interest." 2 Hence in an
action for seduction, loss of service must be alleged and must be proved at
the trial, or the plaintiff will fail, although the fact of seduction be
clear. Unless some damage to the plaintiff can be proved or presumed,
the moral turpitude of the defendant will give the plaintiff no legal right
of action, though it may properly increase the amount of the verdict, once
a legal cause of action is established.
Analogous to this is the case of Ajello v. Worsley? where the defendant, a
retail dealer in pianos, advertised for sale a new piano of the plaintiffs' manu-
facture at the price at which the plaintiffs supplied the same to the trade,
and thereby caused other dealers to give up dealing with the plaintiffs.
He continued the advertisement after he ceased to have in stock any pianos
of the plaintiffs' manufacture, and after the plaintiffs had refused to supply
him with any. He expected to be able to acquire pianos of the plaintiffs'
from other dealers. It was held that, as the defendant honestly intended
to sell the pianos at the price named, he had a legal right to issue the
advertisements ; and that though the advertisements amounted to an im-
plied representation that the defendant had in his possession a piano of the
advertised description, which latterly was not the case, this representation
was not the cause of the damage to the plaintiffs' trade, and consequently
gave no right of action.
So no action will lie against a solicitor who, being instructed to take
proceedings against one person, by mistake and without malice sues,
obtains judgment and issues execution against another person of the same
name. In such a case it is obvious that the individual thus sued by
mistake would have a good defence to the action, and would, if successful,
recover in it such costs as on taxation the law allows. But he has no
further remedy for the inconvenience and trouble to which he has been put,
if the proceedings were adopted purely through mistake ; although damage
1 See the remarks of Lord Ellenborough, C. J., in Carr v. Hood (1808), 1 Camp.
355 ii. ; and McQuire v. Western Morning News Co., [1903] 2 K. B.' 100 ; Thomas
v. Bradbury, Agnew $ Co., [1906] 2 It. B. 627.
2 Per our. in Grinnell v. Wells (1844), 7 M. & Gr. at p. 1041.
3 [1898] 1 Ch. 274.