Byam v. Collins

• Decision Date: 27 November 1888
• Citation: 19 N.E. 75,111 N.Y. 143
• Parties: BYAM v. COLLINS et al.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

111 N.Y. 143

19 N.E. 75

BYAM

v.COLLINS et al.¹

Court of Appeals of New York.

November 27, 1888.

Appeal from supreme court, general term, Fifth department.

Action by William J. Byam against Jennie E. Collins, and Alfred H., her husband, for libel and slander. Judgment for defendants was affirmed at general term, and plaintiff appeals.

DANFORTH, J., dissenting.

A. J. Abbott, for appellant.

James Wood, for respondents.

EARL, J.

The general rule is that in the case of a libelous publication the law implies malice, and infers some damage. What are called ‘privileged communications' are exceptions to this rule. Such communications are divided into several classes, with one only of which we are concerned in this case, and that is generally formulated thus: ‘A communication made bona fide upon any subject-matter in which the party communicating has an interest, or in reference to which he has a duty, is privileged, if made to a person having a corresponding interest or duty, although it contains criminating matter which, without this privilege, would be slanderous and actionable; and this though the duty be not a legal one, but only a moral or social duty of imperfect obligation.’ The rule was thus stated in Harrison v. Bush, 5 El. & Bl. 344, and has been generally approved by judges and text-writers since. In Toogood v. Spyring, 1 Cromp. M. & R. 181, an earlier case, it was said that the law considers a libelous ‘publication as malicious unless it is fairly made by a person in the discharge of some public or private duty, whether legal or moral, or in the conduct of his own affairs in matters where his interest is concerned;’ and that statement of the rule was approved by FOLGER, J., in Klinck v. Colby, 46 N. Y. 427, and in Hamilton v. Eno, 81 N. Y. 116. In White v. Nicholls, 3 How. 266, 291, it was said that the description of cases recognized as privileged communications must be understood as exceptions to the general rule, and ‘as being founded upon some apparently recognized obligation or motive, legal, moral, or social, which may fairly be presumed to have led to the publication, and therefore prima facie relieves it from that just implication from which the general law is deduced.’

Whether within the rule as defined in these cases a libelous communication is privileged, is a question of law; and when upon any trial it has been held as matter of law to be privileged, then the burden rests upon the plaintiff to establish as matter of fact that it was maliciously made, and this matter of fact is for the determination of the jury. It has been found difficult to framethisrule in any language that will furnish a plain guide in all cases. It is easy enough to apply the rule in cases where both parties-the one making and the one receiving the communication-are interested in it, or where the parties are related, or where it is made upon request to a party who has an interest in receiving it, or where the party making it has an interest to subserve, or where the party making it is under a legal duty to make it. But when the privilege rests simply upon the moral duty to make the communication, there has been much uncertainty and difficulty in applying the rule. The difficulty is to determine what is meant by the term ‘moral duty,’ and whether in any given case there is such a duty. In Whiteley v. Adams, 15 C. B. (N. S.) 393, ERLE, C. J., said: ‘Judges who have had from time to time to deal with questions as to whether the occasion justified the speaking or the writing of defamatory matter have all felt great difficulty in defining what kind of social or moral duty, or what amount of interest, will afford a justification;’ and in the same case BYLES, J., said the application of the rule ‘to particular cases has always been attended with the greatest difficulty; the combinations of circumstances are so infinitely various.’

The rule as to privileged communications should not be so extended as to open wide the flood-gates of injurious gossip and defamation, by which private character may be overwhelmed, and irreparable mischief done; and yet it should be so administered as to give reasonable protection to those who make and receive communications in which they are interested, of in reference to which they have a real, not imaginary, duty. Every one owes a moral duty not, as a volunteer in a matter he has no legal duty or personal interest, to defame another unless he can find a justification in some pressing emergency. In Coxhead v. Richards, 2 Man. G. & S. [111 N.Y. 152]569, 602, COLTMAN, J., said. ‘The duty of not slandering your neighbor on insufficient grounds is so clear that a violation of that duty ought not to be sanctioned in the case of voluntary communications, except under circumstances of great urgency and gravity. It may be said that it is very hard on a defendant to be subject to heavy damages when he has acted honestly, and when nothing more can be imputed to him than an error in judgment. It may be hard, but it is very hard, on the other hand, to be falsely accused. It is to be borne in mind that people are but too apt rashly to think ill of others. The propensity to tale-bearing and slander is so strong among mankind; and when suspicions are inferred men are so apt to entertain them without due examination, in cases where their interests are concerned, that it is necessary to hold the rule strictly as to any officious intermeddling by which the character of others is affected.’ And in the same case CRESSWELL, J., said. ‘If the property of the ship-owner on the one hand was at stake, the character of the captain was at stake on the other; and I cannot but think that the moral duty not to publish of the latter defamatory matter which he did not know to be true was quite as strong as the duty to communicate to the ship-owner that which he believed to be true.’

One may not go about in the community and acting upon mere rumors proclaim to every body the supposed frailties or bad character of his neighbor, however firmly he may believe such rumors, and be convinced that he owed a social duty to give them currency, that the victim of them may be avoided; and ordinarily one cannot with safety, however free he may be from actual malice, as a volunteer, pour the poison of such rumors into the ears of one who might be affected if the rumors were true. I cite a few cases by way of illustration. In Godson v. Home, 1 Brod. & B. 7, one Noah solicited the plaintiff to be his attorney in an action. The defendant, apparently a total stranger, wrote to Noah, to deprecate his so employing the plaintiff, and this was held to be clearly not a confidential or privileged communication. In Storey v. Challands, 8 Car. & P. 234, one Hersford was about to deal with the plaintiff, when he met the defendant, who said at once, without his opinion being asked at all, ‘If you have anything to do with Storey you will live to repent it. He is a most unprincipled man,’ etc., and Lord DENMAN directed a verdict for the plaintiff, because the defendant began by making the statement without waiting to be asked. In York v. Johnson, 116 Mass. 482, the defendant, a member of a church, was appointed, with the plaintiff and other members of the church, on a committee to prepare a Christmas festival for the Sunday-school. He declined to serve, and, being asked his reason by Mrs. Newton, a member of the committee, said that a third member of the committee, a married man, had the venereal disease; and, being asked where he got it said he did not know, but that ‘he had been with the plaintiff,’ who was a woman; and it was held that this was not a privileged communication. There was no question of the defendant's good faith and reasonable grounds of belief in making the communication, and yet DEVENS, J., in the opinion said: ‘The ruling requested by the defendant that the communication made by him to Mrs. Newton was a privileged one, and not actionable except with proof of express malice, was properly refused. There was no duty which he owed to Mrs. Newton that authorized him to inform her of the defamatory charges against the plaintiff, and no interest of his own which required protection justified it. He had declined to serve upon the same committee with Mrs. York, but he was under no obligation to give any reason therefor, however persistently called upon to do so; and, even if Mrs. Newton had an interest in knowing the character of Mrs. York as a member of the same church, it was an interest of the same description which every member of the community has in knowing the character of other members of the same community with whom they are necessarily brought in contact, and would not shield a person who uttered words otherwise slanderous.’

Having thus stated the general principles of law applicable to a case like this, I will now bring to mind the facts of this case so far as they pertain to the defamatory letter. The plaintiff was a lawyer, and had been engaged in the practice of his profession at Caledonia of rseveral months, and resided there at the date of the letter. Miss Dora McNaughton and the defendant also resided there. The plaintiff was on terms of social intimacy with Dora, and was paying her attention with a view to matrimony, and some time subsequently married her. Mrs. Collins was about twenty-five years old, two years and a half younger than Dora, and was married November 2, 1875; and prior to that she had always resided within a mile and a half from the residence of Dora, and they had been very intimate friends. Dora had a father, and no brother, and Mrs. Collins had a brother. During the time of this intimacy, and at some time before the marriage of Mrs. Collins, Dora repeatedly requested of her that if she ‘knew anything about any young man she went with, or in fact any young man in the place, to tell her, because her father did not go out a great deal, and had no means of knowing, and people would not be apt to...