ALLEGED SLANDER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19978, 21 December 1926, Page 10

ALLEGED SLANDER.

ACTION EOR DAMAGES FAILS. (Special to Daily Times.) WELLINGTON, December 20. The case in which Fred House, dog breeder, of Wellington, claimed £25 damages for alleged slander froni Madge Jackson, a married woman, and her husband, Leonard Jackson, and alternatively £25 from Mrs Jackson in respect of her separate estate, was disposed of in the Magistrate’s Court to-day, when Mr E. Page, S.M., gave his reserved decision on two nonsuit points raiseeb by the defendant’s counsel, Mr W. P. Shorland. The words complained of were used .it a meeting of the New Zealand Toy Club in June last, when Mrs Jackson alleged that the plaintiff had had a female dog sent to him from the country to be mated with a certain dog, and, instead, he had mated it with another dog. At the hearing Mr J. S. Hanna argued for House that the statement had injured his business as a dog breeder and was maliciously uttered. His Worship held that the occasion was a privileged one, and thought that if the defendant believed House to be unsuited for election on the committee of the club it was her duty to disclose her objection. “The onus is, therefore, cast upon the plaintiff to satisfy the court that the statements were mode maliciously,” continued Mr Page. “ The defendant’s allegations were not made voluntarily, but were in answer to inquiries and with a view' to justifying her refuse! to act on the committee. I think, therefore, that malice on the part of the defendant has not been established, and that for this reason the plaintiff’s claim must fail” Judgment ivas entered for the defendants, with costs to scale.