Odger's English Common Law

WORDS CAUSING LOSS. 545
either his personal or his professional reputation, or impeaching
his title to any land or thing, or disparaging the goods he
manufactures or sells. Any statement, whether written or
spoken, which is clearly calculated to injure the plaintiff in
his business, and which has in fact injured his business and
caused him pecuniary loss, may be ground for an action for
damages. Such a statement may assert that the goods which
the plaintiff offers for sale are not what he represents them
to be, or that they are an infringement of somebody's patent
or copyright 1
;
or it may urge people to bring actions against
the plaintiff, or warn them not to deal with him, or not to pay
him money due to him, or assert that he has given up business.*
If any such words be spoken falsely and without reasonable
cause, and have in fact injured the plaintiff in his trade, they
will be actionable.
There are also words which do not affect a man's reputation,
profession or trade, but which nevertheless may cause him
special damage. There is authority for holding that if such
words are written or spoken by the defendant with the malicious
intention of injuring the plaintiff, and the contemplated
injury follows as the direct result of the defendant's words,
an action on the case will lie whatever be the nature of the
words which the defendant employed. Whether an action
on the case will also lie for such words if they were written
or spoken without lawful occasion and have caused damage
which is the natural and necessary consequence of their
publication, although the defendant never designed or
intended that such a result should follow, is at present
not clear law. 3
1 As to the position of a patentee who has issued such circulars or notices, see
b. 36 of the Patents and Designs Act, 1907 (7 Edw. VII. c. 29), formerly s. 32 of
the Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Act, 1883 (46 & 47 Vict. c. 57).
2 Eatcliffe v. Evans, [1892] 2 Q. B. 524.
3 See, however, Green v. Button (1835), 2 Cr. M. & R. 707 ; Barley v. Walford
(1846), 9 Q. B. 197 ; Dixon v. Holden, (1869), L. E. 7 Eq. 492 ; Richardson v.
Silvester (1873), L. B. 9 Q. B. 34 ; Riding v. Smith (1876), 1 Ex. D. at pp. 94, 96 ;
Green v. Archer (1891), 7 Times L. R. 542 ; Newton v. Amalgamated Musicians'
Union (1896), 12 Times L. E. 623 ; Wilkinson v. Doumton, [1897J 2Q. B. 57 ; Leathern
v. Craig and others, [1899] 2 Ir. E. 667 ; Janvier v. Sweeney, [1919] 2 K. B. 316.
B.C.L.
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