ACTION FOR SLANDER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 222, 15 August 1930, Page 11

ACTION FOR SLANDER.

PLAINTIFFS SUCCESSFUL. Per Press Association. DUNEDIN, Aug. 14. Judgment by confession for £3OO was entered against Abraham Lind in the Magistrate's Court this morning in an action for slander brought against him by Ernest Goodall and Prudence Alice Goodall. The action arose from the publication of a pamphlet when Lind was released from prison last year after serving a term for indecent assault. In this pamphlet, according to the statement of claim, defendant inferred that plaintiffs criminally conspired to induce Hildah Goodall, their daughter, to give false testimony against Lind on his trial and that she received money from the police for inducing her to give false testimony and was endeavouring to obtain further money from Parliament for their having persuaded her to give such false testimony. Lind was formerly an evangelist and the girl Goodall attended his meetings. A printer named George Cooper was joined as a defendant in the slander action as having jiublished the pamphlet but it was announced that lie had settled his action. DOCTOR AWARDED DAMAGES. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Aug. 15. The sum of £250 damages was awarded Dr. Walter Richards in the slander action against the Australasian Temperance and General Mutual Life Assurance Society Ltd. The hearing was concluded in the Supreme Court yesterday before Mr Justice Ostler and a jury. The basis of the action was the remarks of the society’s nurse to one of tire doctor’s patients. The following issues were agreed upon for submission to the jury and were answered as stated : (1) Were the words alleged in tire statement of claim or similar words spoken by the nurse ?—Yes. (2) Were the words spoken by the nurse to Mrs Bell and Mrs Little defamatory of the plaintiff?—Yes. (3) If so, was the nurse when she spoke those words in the presence of Mrs Little acting bona fide or was she actuated by malice?—By malice. (4) If the words spoken by the nurse were defamatory of the plaintiff, was sh,e in speaking those words to Mrs Bell actuated by malice? — Yes. (5) What damages, if any, is the plaintiff entitled to recover from the defendant ? —£2so. JUDGE’S RULING. WELLINGTON, Aug. 14. In the action for slander, Dr. Richards v. the Australasian Temperance and General Mutual Life Assurance Society, Ltd., Mr Justice Ostler observed, with reference to the third question put to the jury, that in the law of libel there were occasions when a person might make a defamatory statement of another on a privileged occasion. Unless it could be shown that the occasion was not a privileged one, no libel could bo laid against him. “I have ruled,” said His Honour, “that this was a privileged occasion.” But the privileged occasion could only exist where the person speaking a libel and the person to whom ho was speaking had a common interest. Mrs Little did not share in any common interest which Mrs Bell had with the defendant corporation. Malice did. not mean only spite or ill-will, but also any other motive apart from the direct one. The nurse herself had said in evidence that she had never come

into contact ivitli Dr. Richards, and had never heard anything about his cases. For that reason, if she used the words alleged, slio must have known they were untrue. When a person spoke libellous words which he knew were untrue, it was conclusive evidence of malice.