Roberts, one, Company against Camden
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 25 November 1807 |
| Date | 25 November 1807 |
| Court | Court of the King's Bench |
English Reports Citation: 103 E.R. 508
IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH.
[93] roberts, one, &c. against camden. Wednesday, Nov. 25th, 1807. The rule of construction as to slanderous words is to construe them in their plain and popular sense, such in which an ordinary hearer would have understood them at the time they were spoken. And therefore the defendant saying of the plaintiff, that "he was under a charge of a prosecution for perjury; and that G. W. (an attorney of that name) had the Attorney-General's directions to prosecute the plaintiff for perjury," is actionable. For after verdict (by which the jury who are to judge of the intent of the speaker, must be taken to have negatived that he meant to speak of a prosecution for a perjury which the plaintiff had not committed,) the words, not having been justified, must be taken to be false; and being unqualified by any context, and unexplained by any occasion to warrant them, the law infers malice from the falsehood of an accusation which, in the common acceptation of the words, impute perjury to the plaintiff. Where new matter introduced by an innuendo, without any antecedent colloquium to which it can refer to support it, is not necessary to sustain the action, it may be rejected as surplusage. And therefore an innuendo, that the Attorney-General spoken of meant the Attorney-General for the County Palatine of Chester, was so rejected. In an action on the case for slander, the plaintiff, after stating by way of introduction, that at the time of the slanderous words spoken, he was a practising attorney of the Court of Great Sessions for the county of Flint, and had conducted himself with integrity, &c. declared in the third count that the defendant intending to injure and aggrieve the plaintiff in his good name, character, &c. and profession, and to cause it to be believed that the plaintiff was guilty of perjury, and that a prosecution for the crime of perjury was about to be commenced against him, afterwards, &c. in a certain discourse, &e. falsely and maliciously, &c. -said and published these false, scandalous, 9 EAST, 94. ROBEBTS V. CAMDEN 509 and malicious words following, of and concerning the plaintiff, viz. " He (meaning the plaintiff) is under a charge of a prosecution for perjury. G-. Williams (meaning one G. W. an attorney) had the Attorney-General's directions (meaning the directions of His Majesty's Attorney-General for the County Palatine of Chester) to...
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...(1). (h) Although this innuendo be wrong, yet as it was not necessary to sustain the action, it might have been rejected as surplusage. 9 East, 93, Roberts v. Camden. [1 Cr. & M. 11, Harvey v. Trench. But this can only be done when the innuendo is bad and merely useless, and does not in any......
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