The plaintiff was an engineer and boiler-maker. He alleged that a statement in the local newspaper that he had ceased business had caused him loss. The evidence that was given at trial consisted of general evidence of a downturn in trade; but the plaintiff did not give evidence of the loss of any specific customer. The jury awarded him damages of pounds 120.
Held: The award was upheld. It is not necessary for a plaintiff to prove that publication of defamatory words caused him damage because damage is presumed. As to damages: ‘If, indeed, over and above this general damage, further particular damage is under the circumstances to be relied on by the plaintiff, such particular damage must of course be alleged and shewn. But a loss of general custom, flowing directly and in the ordinary course of things from a libel, may be alleged and proved generally. ‘It is not special damage’ – says Pollock, C.B., in Harrison v. Pearce . . ‘it is general damage resulting from the kind of injury the plaintiff has sustained.’ So in Bluck v. Lovering . . under a general allegation of loss of credit in business, general evidence was received of a decline of business presumably due to the publication of the libel, while loss of particular customers, not having been pleaded, was held rightly to have been rejected at the trial: . Macloughlin v. Welsh was an instance of excommunication in open church. General proof was held to be rightly admitted that the plaintiff was shunned and his mill abandoned, though no loss of particular customers was shewn. Here the very nature of the slander rendered it necessary that such general proof should be allowed. The defamatory words were spoken openly and publicly, and were intended to have the exact effect which was produced. Unless such general evidence was admissible, the injury done could not be proved at all.’
However, in relation to libel: ‘If, in addition to this general loss, the loss of particular customers was to be relied on, such particular losses would, in accordance with the ordinary rules of pleading, have been required to be mentioned in the statement of claim . . ‘ and ‘The necessity of alleging and proving actual temporal loss with certainty and precision in all cases of the sort has been insisted upon for centuries: . . In all actions accordingly on the case where the damage actually done is the gist of the action, the character of the acts themselves which produce the damage, and the circumstances under which these acts are done, must regulate the degree of certainty and particularity with which the damage done ought to be stated and proved. As much certainty and particularity must be insisted on, both in pleading and proof of damage, as is reasonable, having regard to the circumstances and to the nature of the acts themselves by which the damage is done. To insist upon less would be to relax old and intelligible principles. To insist upon more would be the vainest pedantry. The rule to be laid down with regard to malicious falsehoods affecting property or trade is only an instance of the doctrines of good sense applicable to all that branch of actions on the case to which the class under discussion belongs. The nature and circumstances of the publication of the falsehood may accordingly require the admission of evidence of general loss of business as the natural and direct result produced, and perhaps intended to be produced. An instructive illustration, and one by which the present appeal is really covered, is furnished by the case of Hargrave v. Le Breton . . decided a century and a half ago. It was an example of slander of title at an auction. The allegation in the declaration was that divers persons who would have purchased at the auction left the place; but no particular persons were named. The objection that they were not specially mentioned was, as the report tells us, ‘easily’ answered. The answer given was that in the nature of the transaction it was impossible to specify names; that the injury complained of was in effect that the bidding at the auction had been prevented and stopped, and that everybody had gone away. It had, therefore, become impossible to tell with certainty who would have been bidders or purchasers if the auction had not been rendered abortive. This case shows, what sound judgment itself dictates, that in an action for falsehood producing damage to a man’s trade, which in its very nature is intended or reasonably likely to produce, and which in the ordinary course of things does produce, a general loss of business, as distinct from the loss of this or that known customer, evidence of such general decline of business is admissible.’
Judges:
Bowen LJ
Citations:
[1892] 2 QB 524, [1892] UKLawRpKQB 131
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Collins Stewart Ltd and Another v The Financial Times Ltd QBD 20-Oct-2004
The claimants sought damages for defamation. The claimed that the article had caused very substantial losses (andpound;230 million) to them by affecting their market capitalisation value. The defendant sought to strike out that part of the claim. . .
Cited – Berezovsky v Forbes Inc and Michaels; Glouchkov v Same HL 16-May-2000
Plaintiffs who lived in Russia sought damages for defamation against an American magazine with a small distribution in England. Both plaintiffs had real connections with and reputations in England. A judgment in Russia would do nothing to repair the . .
Cited – Devenish Nutrition Ltd and others v Sanofi-Aventis SA (France) and others ChD 19-Oct-2007
The claimant sought damages for the losses it had suffered as a result of price fixing by the defendant companies in the vitamin market. The European Commission had already fined the defendant for its involvement.
Held: In an action for breach . .
Cited – Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd and Another SC 12-Jun-2019
Need to Show Damage Increased by 2013 Act
The claimant alleged defamation by three publishers. The articles were held to have defamatory meaning, but the papers argued that the defamations did not reach the threshold of seriousness in section 1(1) of the 2013 Act.
Held: The appeal . .
Cited – Simon and Others v Lyder and Another PC 29-Jul-2019
(Trinidad and Tobago) The Board was asked as to the well-known conundrum in the common law of defamation, namely the extent to which (if at all) two or more different statements made upon different occasions by the same defendant may be aggregated . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Damages, Defamation
Updated: 24 April 2022; Ref: scu.220032