Odger's English Common Law

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PUBLICATION. 519
was dictated to a shorthand clerk, who subsequently wrote the letter out in
longhand. After being copied by an office boy in a press copy-book, it
was sent addressed to the plaintiffs, and was opened by one of the plaintiffs'
clerks. The Court of Appeal decided that there was publication to the
clerks both of the plaintiffs and defendants and that neither occasion was
privileged. In the latter case a solicitor dictated to his clerk a letter,
written on behalf of his client. The letter, which contained the alleged
libel, was addressed and sent to the plaintiff after having been copied into
the letter-book by another clerk. The publication to the solicitor's clerks
was held by the Court of Appeal to have been necessary and usual and in
the interest of the client, and so privileged.
If a man desires and intends and does all in his power to
publish defamatory words, and yet they never reach the eyes
of any one except the plaintiff himself, no action lies. On
the other hand, if a man unintentionally or accidentally
publishes defamatory words to a third person, an action will
lie. 1
This is so whenever the defendant himself composed or
wrote the libel, or caused it to be printed or written. The
rule is the same whenever the defendant had read the words,
and was therefore aware of their libellous character, before
published them. But where the defendant did not him-
self compose or write the words or cause them to be printed,
and has not himself read them, he will not be liable, if he
can satisfy the jury that he was guilty of no negligence and
was not to blame in the matter.
Thus, the sale of every written or printed copy of a libel is primd facie
an actionable publication. But if the defendant is a newsvendor who
neither wrote nor printed the libel, but merely sold the newspaper contain-
ing it in the ordinary way of his business, and who neither knew nor ought
to have known that that newspaper did contain or was likely to contain
any libellous matter, he will not be deemed to have published the libel
which he thus innocently disseminated. 2
(ii. ) What do the words mean ?
Whether the words complained of are defamatory or not,
or are actionable or not, must in every case depend on the
meaning which the words conveyed to those who read or
heard them. Before words can injure any one's reputation,
1 See ante, pp. 516, 517.
2 Emmens v. Pottle (1885), 16 Q. B. D. 354 ; Huynes v. Be Beck (1914), 31
Times L. K. 115.