based on this letter, held, one judge dissenting, the letter was not privileged.' Where the wife of A., prior to her decease, made a request to B., after her (A.'s) decease, to look to and advise her daughters. The wife of A. died, and he remarried. B. told the daughters of A.'s deceased wife that their step-mother was a loose woman, and that they ought to leave their home; this was held to be a privileged publication. The plaintiffs, printers at M., had been employed by the defendant, the deputy clerk of the peace for the county of K., to print the register of electors for the county, the expense of which was defrayed from the county rate, and allowed by the justices at quarter sessions; afterwards the defendant employed another printer, who agreed to do the work at a lower rate than that which the plaintiffs required, and he wrote a letter to the "finance committee" appointed to superintend such expenses, in the conclusion of which he imputed improper motives to the plaintiffs in the demand which they made, and characterized their demand as “an attempt to obtain a consider. able sum of money from the county by misrepresentation." In an action for libel, it was held that the occasion of writing the letter prima facie rebutted the presumption of malice, but that it was a question for the jury whether the sentence complained of as exceeding the privilege was evidence of malice. The defendant, bona fide believing that the plaintiff, who was a clerk to one M., a customer of the defendant, and who had been sent to the defendant's shop by M., had, while there, stolen a box from an inner room, went to M.,and, after telling him of his loss intimated his suspicion of the plaintiff, saying, "There was no one else in the room, and he must have taken it." Held, that the

1 Byam v. Collins, 111 N. Y. 143; rev'g 39 Hun, 204.

Adcock v. Marsh, 8 Ired. 360. Report of persons employed by plaintiff's wife's father to make inquiries about him made to her mother, held,

conditionally privileged. (Atwill v
McIntosh, 120 Mass. 177.)

3 Cooke v. Wildes, 5 El. & Bl,
328; 24 Law Jour. Rep. N. S. 367 Q.
B.; 1 Jur. N. Š. 610.

STANFORD LAW

communication was privileged by the occasion.1 A letter
written to B., concerning the plaintiff, who was steward of
B.'s estate, was held to be privileged. A communication
made by one subscriber to a charity to another subscriber
to the same charity, respecting the conduct of the plaintiff,
the medical attendant in the employ of such charity, held
not to be privileged. Where the alleged libel was con-
tained in a handbill offering a reward for the recovery
of
bills, and stating that the plaintiff was believed to have
embezzled them; held, that if done with the view solely to
protect persons liable on the bills, or for the conviction of
the offender, it was a good defense; and that, in order to
show the bona fides of the defendant, evidence of his having
preferred a charge of the same nature against the plaintiff
was admissible. A communication by a landlord to his
tenant, respecting the conduct of sub-tenants, or persons
in the employ of the tenant, is conditionally privileged;
as where the defendant complained to E., his tenant,
her lodgers, of whom the plaintiff was one, behaved im-
properly Iat the windows, and he added that no moral
person would like to have such people in his house."
communications made by an employer to his employee,
by an employee to his employer, are conditionally privi

1 Amann v. Damm, 8 C. B. N. S. 597.

2 Cleaver v. Sarraude, cited I Camp. 268, note

3 Martin v. Strong, 5 Adol. & El. 535; I Nev. & P. 29. A letter written by the defendant, a subscriber to a charity, to the managing committee, impugning the moral character of the plaintiff, the secretary of said charity, in reference to a person whom defendant has recommended as matron; and a second letter by the defendant to said committe, in answer to inquiries made by them, and also oral statements made by the defendant to said committee, were held to be privileged if made with an honest and reasonable

that

So

or

leged in certain cases. Thus, defamatory words spoken by an employer to his overseer, intended to protect the employer's private interests and property, spoken without malice, were held privileged.' So where the plaintiff was a wine merchant, and the defendant the surgeon to a poor law union. The plaintiff made a proposal to supply wine for the use of the sick paupers, defendant advised the board of guardians not to accept plaintiff's proposal, alleging that the wine which plaintiff would supply would not be of the kind represented. Defendant's language was held privileged. The communicaton of an agent to his principal, touching the business of his agency, and not going beyond it, is privileged, and is not actionable without proof that the defendant did not act honestly and in good faith, but intended to do a wanton injury to the plaintiff. The defendants, bankers at L., received from C. & Co., of Y., for collection, a note drawn by plaintiffs, merchants at L.; the plaintiffs took up the note at maturity, the 19th of April, by giving a draft on defendant's bank, in which they kept their account. The draft overdrew the plaintiff's account, but was accepted by a clerk of the defendant, who, in reply to an offer of one of the plaintiffs to transfer an amount standing to his individual credit sufficient to meet the check, declared that to be unnecessary. The plaintiffs' account was made good on the 25th day of April, and on the 28th of April defendants remitted to C. & Co. the amount of the note, and added a postscript: "Confidential. Had to hold over a few days for the accommodation of L. & H."-the plaintiffs. On the trial, there was no evidence as to malice; the plaintiffs had a verdict on which judgment was entered, and the case went to the Court of Appeals, where the judgment

1 Easley v. Moss, 9 Ala. 266.

2 Murphy v. Kellett, Ir. Rep. 13 110. Com. Law, 488.

3 Washburn v. Cooke, 3 Denio,

was reversed, and a new trial ordered; and the court said, "Assuming that the defendant made the communication in perfect good faith, as we must on this question of privilege, his act was not to be deemed officious, as it related to the very business with which he was intrusted."1 The sheriff levied upon certain cattle of W., and they were wrongfully driven away, whereby he was likely to be damnified; he employed C., a law student, to ascertain the facts, and to advise what course it was best to pursue; held, that C.'s letter to the sheriff, stating facts implicating W., and advising his arrest for larceny of the cattle, was privileged.2

241 b. The communication of a pastor to his parishioners, relating to matters not spiritual, is not necessarily privileged; as where the plaintiff, who had been for twenty years schoolmaster at the national school of the adjoining parishes of C. & I., of which the defendant, the rector of C., and another person, the vicar of 1., were trustees, was requested by the defendant to undertake the Sunday school of his parish; he declining to do so, was removed from the mastership of the national school; he afterwards, intending to gain a livelihood by it, set up a school in the defendant's parish, in a school-room used as a dissenting chapel. In a letter addressed to his parishioners, the defendant told them that the plaintiff's attempt betrayed a spirit of opposition to authority, and justified the managers of the national school in removing him; that "no rightly disposed Christian, who received in simple faith the teaching of inspiration, 'Obey them who have the rule over you, and submit yourselves,' could expect God's blessing to rest upon such an undertaking," and warned them against countenancing it, either by subscriptions or sending their children to it for instruction; that it would

1 Lewis v. Chapman, 16 N. Y. 369; rev'g 19 Barb. 253.

IIO.

2 Washburn v. Cooke, 3 Denio,

be a schismatical school, and those who aided the plaintiff in any way would be partakers with him in his evil deeds; they were to mark them which cause divisions and offenses, and avoid them, &c. On the trial, the presiding judge held the communication a privileged one, and in the absence of any evidence of malice, ordered a verdict for the defendant; on motion for a new trial, this direction was held erroneous, and that the jury should have determined whether the publication was not malicious on its face.1

241 c. A customer may in good faith complain to a tradesman with whom he deals of anything he may deem irregular or dishonest in the conduct of such tradesman towards him (the customer); as where the plaintiff, a butcher, sold meat to the defendant, and defendant afterwards called at plaintiff's shop, and, in the presence of sev eral of his customers, said: "I intended to have dealt with you, but shall not do so, for you changed the lamb that I bought of you for a coarse piece of mutton." Held that if the statement was made in good faith, it was privileged.2 And where the defendant, a customer of the plaintiff, a corn dealer, went to the place of business of the plaintiff, and

1 Gilpin v. Fowler, 9 Ex. 615; 23 Law Jour. Rep. N. S. 152, Ex.; 18 Jur. 292; see 399, post. There are in Scotland many reported cases of the recovery of damages against ministers of the Gospel, for words spoken in the pulpit. (See 2 Shaw's Digest, 1613, tit. Reparation; and 10 Alb. Law Jour. 240, art. "Privilege of the Pulpit." See ante, p. 195, n. 6, p. 199, n. 8, and Messire v. Blanchard, Ramsey's App.Cases, 421; McGrath v Finn, 11 Ir. L. Times R. 103; 16 Alb. L. J. 186.) A Hebrew butcher, named Schott, complained that after having opened a shop in Whitechapel, where he had obtained a considerable business amongst persons of his own persuasion, the defendant, Chief Rabbi,

had not only refused to sanction his
selling meat to Jews, but had em-
ployed emissaries to warn his custom-
ers that what he sold was common
and unclean. As a consequence he
lost his business. The judge ruled
that there was no evidence to go to
the jury, and even had there been any
proof of the alleged slander, he should
have told the jury that the communi-
cation was privileged.

2 Crisp v. Gill, 29 Law Times, 82.
A dealer in paints, who sells them
upon condition that they be used
without adulteration, may in good
faith complain of one whom he sus-
pects of adulterating his paint. (Lynch.
v. Febiger, 39 La. Ann. 336.)