Odger's English Common Law

CIVIL CONSPIRACIES. 625
Another exception to this rule was created by the Directors' Liability
Act, 1890, 1 which provides that in case of representations made by
directors of companies, whereby they become liable to pay damages under
this Act, each director shall be entitled to contribution, as in cases of con-
tract, from any other person who, if sued separately, would have been liable ;
and this statutory right to contribution applies where the directors are sued
and held liable in a common law action of deceit as fully as if they had been
sued under this Act. 2
Civil Conspiracies.
Closely resembling an action for a joint tort is an action
brought to recover compensation for damage which the
plaintiff has sustained from a conspiracy between the defen-
dants. Most conspiracies are crimes ; and we have defined
a criminal conspiracy as an agreement by two or more
persons to carry out an unlawful common purpose or to
carry out a lawful common purpose by unlawful means. 3
We have also seen that the phrase " unlawful purpose " in
this definition covers all crimes and most torts and a few
acts, which are neither torts nor crimes, but are either
flagrantly immoral or obviously injurious to the public
interest. If in carrying into effect a criminal conspiracy
the conspirators inflict loss and damage on a private
individual, he will have a private action for the particular
damage which he has separately sustained. This is in
accordance with the general rule, to which reference has
already been made. But in an action brought for damage
caused by a conspiracy " the damage sustained by the
plaintiff is the ground of the action, and not the con-
spiracy." 4 And the damage must be either the natural
and necessary consequence of the defendants' act, or the
defendants must have contemplated or intended that such
damage should fall on the plaintiff ; otherwise it will be too
remote. The crime is complete as soon as the unlawful
1 53 & 64 Viot. c. 64, s. 5, re-enacted by the Companies (Consolidation; Act,
1908 (8 Edw. VII., c. 69), s. 84 (4).
2 Genon v. Simpson, [1903] 2 K. B. 197.
s Ante, p. 265.
4 Skinner v. Gunton (1659), 1 Wms. Saund. 229 b, n. 4 ; Bailer's Nisi Prius,
14; Barber v. Lesiter (1859), 7 C. B. N. S. 175, 18li; Thomas v. Moore, [1918]
1 K. B. 555 ; and cf. private rights arising out of public nuisance, ante, p. 500.
B.C.L. 40