Odger's English Common Law

628 CIVIL CONSPIRACIES.
cases a crime
;
x and if the person boycotted sustains any
pecuniary loss in consequence of such a criminal conspiracy,
he has a good cause of action for damages, although the
combination in itself and without such consequent damage
is no tort. 2
It was, before the passing of the Trade Disputes Act, 1906, 3 held
actionable for the committee and officers of a trade union to publish a
"black list," with the object of forbidding all members of the union to
have any business with any of the persons or firms named in the list.
Kekewich, J., granted an injunction to restrain any further circulation
of such a " black list," on the ground that its publication was a purely
malicious act, unnecessary for the protection of the defendants or the men
whom they represented, and intended to injure the plaintiffs and the men
who still remained in their employ. The Court of Appeal, with some
hesitation, affirmed this decision. 4 " Black lists are real instruments of
coercion, as every man whose name is on one soon discovers to his cost." 5
But it is not every conspiracy to commit a tort which is
criminal. Thus in R. v. Turner and others 6 it was held that
a conspiracy to commit merely a civil trespass was not
indictable. Nevertheless, as the eight defendants had
undoubtedly committed torts together and in committing
them had done damage, they were each and all of them
liable in a civil action as joint tortfeasors.* In such an
action it would not be necessary to have recourse to any law
of conspiracy.
There is, however, authority for saying that there exists a
third class wholly apart from both criminal conspiracies and
joint torts, which is perhaps best described by the name of
civil conspiracies. The boundary lines which distinguish such
a conspiracy from an indictable conspiracy are vague and
nebulous. The limits indeed of the class of indictable
conspiracies are by no means clear. But there are, it seems,
conspiracies which may be the foundation of an action,
1 See ante, pp. 264, 265.
2 Temperton v. Russell and others, [1893] 1 Q. B. 715 ; Pratt v. British Medical
Association, [1919] 1 K. B. 244.
s 6 Edw. VII., c. 47.
4 Trollope % Sims v. London Building Trades Federation (1895), 11 Times L. K. 228,
280; (1896), 12 Times L. R. 373. And see Collard v. Marshall, [1892] 1 Ch. 571
Newtom. Amalgamated Musicians' Union (1896), 12 Times L. B. 623 • Leathern v
Craig and others, [1899] 2 I. E. 667.
6 Per Lord Lindley in Quinn v. Leathern, [1901] A. C. at p. 538.
o (1811), 13 East, 228.
7 See Walters v. Green, [1899] 2 Ch. 696.
;