Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/227

207 NOTES. 207 State cannot be expected to depart from it upon the precise facts ; but in such States the policy first declared by Minnesota is followed, and the courts refuse to extend the principle to cases of other beneficial user of land, however undistinguishable those cases be in principle from the turn- table cases. The case for the child will receive some support from a late English decision that a landowner is under a special liability to keep that part of his premises which abuts upon a highway safe for children. Re- cent American authority, however, upon the collateral question, inclines wholly the other way. Indeed, it commends itself to common sense that open window so that a child cannot climb to a precipitous place and fall off," or " every pond and excavation so that he fall not in." or " every switch yard and mill so that he do not enter," or " every coil of rope on shipboard, that he be not entangled." And so the several cases hold. San Antonio 6- A. P. R. R. v. Morgan^ 45 S. VV. Rep. 189, s. c. 374, s. c. 46 id. 28 (Tex.) ; Harred v. Watney, 78 Law Times Rep. 788 ; Hackney v. Wolloston, 75 N. W. Rep. 1037 (Minn.) ; Stendalls. Boyd, 75 N. W. Rep. 735 (Minn.) ; Jackson v. Louisville 6f N. R. R., 46 S. W. Rep. 5 (Ky. C. A.) ; Buck V. Amory C*?, i N. H. Reporter, 182. The general result of these late authorities is to eliminate the fiction of an " implied invitation " or " allurement," or a *' constructive intent" from the argument for the child, and to eliminate the theory of the absolute immunity of the landowner from obligation to trespassers from the argu- ment for the landowner. There remains a clear issue of public policy : does the danger of occasional harm to children outweigh the benefit to the community of leaving owners unfettered in making beneficial use of their land? The Right to Privacy. — It has long been public opinion that there must be found some principle of law to protect the privacy of the indi- vidual from the paragraphs, caricatures, and advertisements of the public print. A development in the law to meet this opinion would seem to be arrested by a recent decision in the Queen's Bench Division. Dockrell v. Dougall, 78 Law Times Rep. 840. In this case the plaintiff was a phy- sician, the defendant, the owner of a medicine called Sallyco. In an advertisement of his medicine the defendant published of the plaintiff, with substantial truth, but without authorization : " Dr. Morgan Dockrell, physician to St. John's Hospital, London, is prescribing Sallyco as an habitual drink. Dr. Dockrell says nothing has done his gout so much good." For this the plaintiff brought an action ; but the suit was dis- missed upon the ground that there was no injury to the plaintiffs prop- erty or reputation. The present actions for defamation fail to give a remedy in two classes of cases where there may often be actual wrongs. When a statement is false but is neither libel per se nor a cause of pecuniary loss, and when a publication is true, there are no actions for defamation. The existence of this unredressed residue in the law governing publication has given rise to the question whether the modern law does not recognize some- thing in the nature of a right to privacy to protect personal appearance, sayings, acts, and personal relations from unwished publicity. This hy- pothesis of a right to privacy has appeared by way of dictum in late American reports. Schuyler v. Curtis, 174 N. Y. 434. The tendency of English authority has also been definitely in the same direction until 27
 * ' a landowner cannot be bound to guard every stairway, shed, tree, and