Jones v Hulton (E.) & Company
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Court | House of Lords |
| Year | 1909 |
| Date | 1909 |
Defamation - Libel in Newspaper - Publication - Intention to defame Plaintiff.
In an action for libel it is no defence to shew that the defendant did not intend to defame the plaintiff, if reasonable people would think the language to be defamatory of the plaintiff.
The appellants, owners and publishers of a newspaper, published in an article defamatory statements of a named person believed by the author of the article and the editor of the paper to be a fictitious personage with an unusual name. The name was that of the respondent, who was unknown to the author and the editor. In an action for libel against the appellants it was admitted that neither the writer nor the editor nor the appellants intended to defame the respondent, but evidence was given by his friends that they thought the article referred to him:—
Held, that the plaintiff was entitled to maintain the action.
MR. ARTEMUS JONES, a barrister in practice, had been at one time on the staff of the Sunday Chronicle, a newspaper owned and published by the appellants, and contributed articles signed by himself to some of the appellants' publications. The appellants published in the Sunday Chronicle an article defamatory of a person described as “Artemus Jones.” The article is set out in the report of the decision below. At the trial before Channell J. and a special jury at Manchester of an action brought by the respondent against the appellants, friends of the respondent gave evidence that they had read the libel and believed it to refer to the respondent. The evidence of the author of the article and of the editor of the Sunday Chronicle that they did not know of the existence of the respondent was accepted as true by the respondent's counsel. The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff for 1750l. damages, and judgment was entered for him. Upon an application by the defendants to set aside the verdict and judgment and to order a new trial, or alternatively to enter judgment for the defendants, the Court of Appeal (Lord Alverstone C.J. and Farwell L.J., Fletcher Moulton L.J. dissenting) affirmed the judgment and dismissed the application. Hence this appeal.
Dec. 3, 6. Norman Craig, K.C. (Isaacs, K.C., with him), for the appellants. It is a necessary element in a cause of action for libel that the words complained of should have been written “of and concerning” the plaintiff. There must have been intention in the writer to apply the words to the plaintiff, and there can be no such intention when the writer does not know even of the existence of the person who imagines the language to be directed to himself. The principle of innuendo has never been applied where the question is one of identity. No doubt a man must be taken to know the reasonable construction of the words he employs; but he cannot know every combination of names in the directory. This principle has been recognized and enforced for centuries. In Johnson v. AylmerF1, on motion for arrest of judgment, it was held that in the absence of express statement that the words applied to the plaintiff the action could not be maintained. The same doctrine was applied and judgment arrested in Lowfield v. Bancroft.F2 In Rex v. HorneF3 Lord Mansfield said: “The gist of every charge of every libel consists in the person or matter of and concerning whom or which the words are averred to be said or written.” In Rex v. Lord AbingdonF4 Lord Kenyon said: “In order to constitute a libel the mind must be in fault and shew a malicious intention to defame.” He added that if the language was inadvertently used it would not be a libel. In the present case the words were inadvertently used; there could have been no intention; the mind was not at fault. There may, of course, be indications, intelligible to those who know the circumstances, which point to a particular person, as in Le Fanu v. MalcolmsonF5, where language was used of a class of Irish factories which clearly...
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