swarb.co.uk - law index
These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases.
Media - From: 1849 To: 1899
This page lists 3 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
Campbell v Spottiswoode (1863) 3 B & S 769; [1863] EngR 405; (1863) 122 ER 288
1863
Crompton J, Cockburn CJ
Defamation, Media
The plaintiff, a dissenting Protestant minister, sought to advance Christianity in China by promoting a newspaper with letters emphasising its importance. The defendant attacked him in a rival newspaper, saying his motive was not to take the gospel to the Chinese but to profit from the newspaper sales. He then alleged that the subscribers listed were fictitious. The defendant was clear that this was only an inference but one of fact. Held: It was a defence to defamation, that the words were a comment on a matter of public interest. The court distinguished between attacking the scheme and attacking the character of its proponent.
Crompton J said: 'it is the right of all the Queen's subjects to discuss public matters, but no person can have a right on that ground to publish what is defamatory merely because he believes it to be true. If this were so, a public man might have base motives imputed to him without having an opportunity of righting himself". A bona fide belief that he is publishing what is true would not provide a defendant with an answer to an action for libel, where he has attributed "base and sordid motives which are not warranted by the facts" and "Nothing is more important than that fair and full latitude of discussion should be allowed to writers upon any public matter, whether it be the conduct of public men, the proceedings in courts of justice or in Parliament, or the publication of a scheme or of a literary work. But it is always to be left to a jury to say whether the publication has gone beyond the limits of a fair comment on the subject-matter discussed. A writer is not entitled to overstep those limits and impute base and sordid motives which are not warranted by the facts, and I cannot for a moment think that, because he has a bona fide belief that he is publishing what is true, that is any answer to an action for libel. With respect to the publication of the plaintiff's scheme, the defendant might ridicule it and point out the improbability of its success; but that was all he had a right to do."
Cockburn CJ said: "I think the fair position in which the law may be settled is this: that where the public conduct of a public man is open to animadversion, and the writer who is commenting upon it makes imputations on his motives which arise fairly and legitimately out of his conduct so that a jury shall say that the criticism was not only honest, but also well founded, an action is not maintainable". But it is not because a public writer fancies that the conduct of a public man is open to the suspicion of dishonesty, he is therefore justified in assailing his character as dishonest."
1 Cites
1 Citers
[ Commonlii ]
Purcell v Sowler (1877) LR 2 CP 215
1877
CA
Mellish LJ, Fox LJ and Bramwell LJ
Defamation, Media
A Manchester newspaper reported a public meeting of poor-law guardians, in which a medical officer was said to have neglected to attend pauper patients when sent for. Held: Publication was not privileged. The Court looked beyond the subject-matter, saying the administration of the poor-law was a matter of national concern, but that there was no duty to report charges made in the absence of the medical officer and without his having had any opportunity to meet them. The meeting was a privileged occasion for the speaker, but publication in the press was not. "This review of the authorities shows that, save where the publication is of a report which falls into one of the recognised privileged categories, the court must look at the circumstances of the case before it in order to ascertain whether the occasion of the publication was privileged. It is not enough that the publication should be of general interest to the public. The public must have a legitimate interest in receiving the information contained in it, and there must be a correlative duty in the publisher to publish, which depends also on the status of the information which he receives, at any rate where the information is being made public for the first time."
Cockburn CJ said that "it is impossible to doubt that the administration of the poor-law is a matter of national concern"
Mellish LJ observed: "there is no reason why the charges should be made public before the person charged has been told of the charges, and has had the opportunity of meeting them . . Such a communication as the present ought to be confined in the first instance to those whose duty it is to investigate the charges."
1 Citers
Gilbert v The Star Newspaper Co Ltd (1894) 51 TLR 4
1894
ChD
Chitty J
Intellectual Property, Media
W.S. Gilbert had found that, in breach of the implied obligation upon cast members and theatre employees not to disclose the plot of the play in respect of which they were engaged, the plot of his comic opera "His Excellency" had been disclosed to the defendant. Without proof of an assignment or as to joint ownership but relying upon the factual situation the court required the joinder of the theatre manager as a co-plaintiff and granted an appropriate injunction in favour of both Plaintiffs.
1 Citers