Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/129

113 the first time in a case like the present, it could hardly be possible that the additional liabilities to a contract, imposed by the doctrine, should not have been observed

. - The doctrine of a case is often accepted by the courts before its true bearing is thoroughly under- stood, and the result is that a period of uncertainty and confusion follows that is only ended when some clear-minded judge works out the theory and properly adjusts it. The doctrine of Lumley v. Gye has had such a course. It is no longer a novelty to find it followed, but when the reasons for it are so well stated as they are in Van Horn v. Van Horn el al. (28 Atl. Rep. 669) it should be noted. One passage is especially worth quoting. "While a trader," says Van Syckel, J., "may lawfully engage in the sharpest competition,. . . when he oversteps that line and commits an act with the malicious intent of inflicting injury upon his rival's business, his conduct is illegal, and if damage results from it, the injured party is entitled to redress. Nor does it matter whether the wrong-doer effects his object by persuasion or by false representation. The courts look through the instrumentality or means used, to the wrong perpetrated with the malicious intent, and base the right of action upon that." The whole opinion will prove a very valuable one in putting the doctrine on a more satisfactory and more intelligible basis

LIBEL - AGAINST BRITISH MUSEUM. - Mrs. Biddulph Martin (Victoria Woodhull) must seek alleviation for the outrage to her reputation at more tender hands than those of Baron Pollock. In the trial of the suit instituted by her husband and herself against the trustees of the British Museum (Martin et ux. v. Trustees British Museum, 10 T. L. R. 338), for having given out to general readers the story of the Beecher-Tilton case, a verdict was found for the defendant, and though the case has been appealed, it is hardly probable that there will be a change, at least in the law. The jury seem to have gone wild on the questions put to them, and it is hard to find meaning in their answers; but at least they returned that neither the defendants nor their servants knew or ought to have known of the libellous matter that they gave out. Assuming that by " ought to have known " they mean a reasonably faithful discharge of the duties put upon them by Parliament, the case is brought quite in line with the authority cited by Baron Pollock, Emmens v. Pottle, 16 Q. B. D. 354 (in the Court of Appeal, 1885). That was a case of a newsdealer who unwittingly sold libellous matter from his stand and was held not to have published it.

It cannot be said that the offence in libel and slander is the influence of the defendant's opinion on the plaintiff's reputation; it is rather the injury to the plaintiff's reputation in any way by the dissemination of falsehood. Therefore cases like Emmens v. Pottle would seem to be capable of explanation only on the failure to connect defendant with the falsehood. Certainly in actions on the case generally, if a defendant can show that no ordinary man would have anticipated the result which actually occurred, it is a good defence. Here the finding of the jury seems to show such a defence, and there is no reason why the defend-