McIntyre v. Weinert

• Decision Date: 05 March 1900
• Docket Number: 320
• Citation: McIntyre v. Weinert, 195 Pa. 52, 45 A. 666 (Pa. 1900)
• Parties: William T. McIntyre, Appellant, v. William Weinert
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

45 A. 666

195 Pa. 52

William T. McIntyre, Appellant, v. William Weinert

No. 320

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

March 5, 1900

Argued January 18, 1900

Appeal, No. 320, Jan. T., 1899, by plaintiff, from order of C.P. No. 1, Phila. Co., March T., 1899, No. 320, sustaining demurrer.Reversed.

Trespass for libel.

The statement averred that the defendant was a member of an association of wholesale produce dealers known as the Philadelphia Produce Credit and Collection Bureau, and that about March 1, 1899, defendant sent to various members of said association the following communication:

"For Exclusive Use of Philadelphia Produce Credit and Collection Bureau.

REPORT OF INDEBTEDNESS.

FORM B.

PHILADELPHIA March 1, 1899.

To the Philadelphia Produce Credit and Collection Bureau:

You are hereby notified that the parties named below have failed to pay their accounts, which were due and payable with usat 12 o'clock noon this Wednesday, March 1, 1899.

NAME

ADDRESS

AMOUNT

Wm. T. McIntyre

38th & Wallace Sts.

$86.14

Yours truly,

WM WEINERT & CO.

Plaintiff denied that he was indebted, and averred that the communication had been maliciously sent in order to coerce him into paying the amount claimed.He also averred that by reason of the communication he was refused supplies by all of the members of the association either for credit or cash.

The defendant demurred to the statement.The court sustained the demurrer.

Error assigned was the judgment of the court.

The judgment is reversed and a procedendo awarded.

E. Spencer Miller and F. B. Bracken, for appellant.-- We submit that successful scheming to close up the avenues of supply against defendant is actionable when, as here, it is done with the deliberate purpose to injure the plaintiff's business, and thereby coerce him into paying a sum of money.

The present case is not distinguishable in principle from the cases of Flood v. Jackson(1895), L.R.2 Q.B. 21, andBowen v. Hall, L.R.6 Q.B. Div. 333, wherein the malice of the act, in itself not unlawful, was stated by the court to be a good ground of action where injury resulted.See alsoLucke v. Clothing Cutters' Assembly, K. of L.,77 Md. 396;Jackson v. Stanfield,36 N.E. 345, andMoores & Co. v. Bricklayers Union, 7 Ry. & Corporation Law Jour. 108.

Weinert's personal wrong doing is not less, because he set into motion a perfect and finished organization upon this malicious design against McIntyre, than it would have been if he had formed such an organization for that original purpose.If Weinert and the other members of the collection bureau would have been liable criminally, they are liable to McIntyre in a civil proceeding such as the present one: Cote v. Murphy,159 Pa. 420;Wildee v. McKee, 111 Pa. 335.

In the case of Mattisonv. Ry. Co., 3 Ohio Decisions(1895), 526, the plaintiff was made the victim of a black list as in the present case and he was held entitled to recover: Bratt v. Swift, 75 N.W. 411.

The notice of plaintiff's falsely alleged indebtedness which the defendant caused to be sent to the members of the association, and the publication of plaintiff's name in the debtor's list or black list were both libelous publications per se: Hood v. Palm,8 Pa. 237;Wildee v. McKee,111 Pa. 335;Lewis & Herrick v. Chapman,19 Barb. 252;Green v. Button, 2 C.M. & R. 707;Wren v. Weild, L.R.4 Q.B. 730;Addison on Torts, p. 6;Price v. Conway,134 Pa. 340.

Disregarding all other elements of special damage alleged, the single allegation that in consequence of the false statement of defendant, the plaintiff was refused credit by a dealer who had theretofore sold him on credit, is sufficient as an allegation of special damage: Brown v. Smith, 13 Common Bench, 596;King v. Watts, 8 C. & P. 614.

John G. Johnson, with him Henry R. Edmunds, for appellee.-- The objects of the association were legal, and no right of action resulted to the appellant from what was done by it: Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor, L.R. App. Cas.(1892), 25.

The appellant has quoted the case of Flood v. Jackson, 1895, L.R.2 Q.B.D. 21, andBowen v. Hall, L.R.6 Q.B.D. 333, and has made an extensive citation from what was said by Lord ESHER, the master of the rolls, in the case of Bowen v. Hall.He also quotes the Ohio case of Moores & Co. v. Bricklayers' Union, which was rested exclusively upon the decision which was made in the English case of Bowen v. Hall.Unfortunately, he has failed to note the fact that these decisions, so far as they help him, have been overruled in England, and that the law has been settled by the House of Lords in the recent case of Allen v. Flood (reversing Flood v. Jackson), L.R. 23 App. Cas.(1898), p. 1.

Any man (unless under contract obligation or unless his employment charges him with some public duty) has a right to refuse to work for or deal with any man or class of men, as he sees fit; and this right which one man may exercise singly, any number may agree to exercise jointly: Bohn Mfg. Co. v. Hollis,55 N.W. 1119.

In Cote v. Murphy,159 Pa. 420, this court dealt with the right of persons engaged in trade to protect themselves by combinations.

There were not sufficient averments of any improper conduct by the appellee which justified the action: Stitzell v. Reynolds,58 Pa. 490;Pittsburg, etc., Ry. Co. v. McCurdy, 114 Pa. 554.

Before GREEN, C.J., MITCHELL, DEAN, FELL, BROWN and MESTREZAT, JJ.

OPINION

MR. JUSTICE MESTREZAT:

The facts of the case, as disclosed by the statement, are briefly as follows: The defendant and other wholesale produce dealers in the city of Philadelphia entered into an unlawful combination, known as the Philadelphia Produce Credit and Collection Bureau, and were in a conspiracy with each other to prevent the obtaining of produce by any retail dealer in said city, who might be in debt, or alleged to be in debt, to any member of said combination or association, and thereby to injure and destroy his business and unlawfully compel him to pay such debt.Under the rules of said association the secretary was required to enter upon a debtors' or "black list" the name of any retail produce dealer who might be reported to him as indebted to any member of said association, and to distribute copies of said list among the members thereof.The retail dealers whose names appear on the list are regarded by the trade generally as dishonest in their business practices and unworthy of credit, and the members of the association are prohibited from selling, and refuse to sell to any person whose name appears on the debtors' list.

The plaintiff was a retail...