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The Green Bag
cause of the variety of its illustrations and the richness of its subordinate propositions. It has been objected by one reviewer (25 Law Quarterly Review 102, Jan. '09) that the author's definition of defamation is too broad: "Defamatory matter is matter which bears a meaning, in relation to an existing person, such that the natural tendency thereof is to injure that person's reputation, or to diminish the willingness of others to associate with him." This last phrase was added to include publications defamatory in law, such as imputations of insanity or infectious disease, and the reviewer to whom we have referred maintains that the definition is too broad, as it would bring the cases of Ratcliffe v. Evans (1892; 2 Q. B. 524), and even Lumley v. Gye (1853; 3 Ellis & Blackburn 216), within the scope of the law of defamation. A complete statement of the author's code definition of defamation, however, would occupy considerable space, as he gradually unfolds it in successive sections. For ex ample, injury to a person's reputation means diminution of "the esteem in which he is held, or the goodwill entertained towards him, or the confidence reposed in him by other persons, whether in respect of his personal character, his private or domestic life, his public, social, professional, or business quali fications, qualities, competence, dealings, con duct, or status, or his financial credit." But further on the code carefully defines several "rules of evidence and construction" to be used in determining whether defamatory matter relates to a particular person, or to a person at all, and one of these rules is: "Matter which appears on the face thereof to be mere disparagement of property, and not to relate, or not necessarily to relate, to a person at all, may nevertheless be proved, by evidence of extrinsic circumstances, to have borne a meaning which, by reasonable implication from such circumstances, was injurious to the reputation of the person possessed of, or entitled to, or dealing in such property, and in that event, such matter is deemed in law to have been published, and to be defama tory, of such person." The facts of the case of Ratcliffe v. Evans, in which the defendant published a statement to the effect that the business of the plaintiff had been discon tinued, and the plaintiff suffered much loss, were not such as to bring that case clearly within the purview of the law of defamation, unless the statement published could have
been proved injurious to the reputation of the person suing, in respect of his business qualifications or status, rather than simply injurious to his business and amounting to what Mr. Bower calls "quasi-defamation" or "disparagement of property," or what Sir Frederick Pollock has suggested in his work on "Torts" it might be well to call "disturb ance of a man in his calling." As for Lumley v. Gye, the act of the defendant in that case in merely inducing the third party to break her contract with the plaintiff for a three months engagement as a singer, would surely not come within the definition of defamation given by Mr. Bower. We cannot see, there fore, how his definition is too broad, merely because he has been compelled to make it broad enough to include statements defama tory in law only. And a careful reading will show, we think, that he consistently draws the line between defamation in law and quasi-defamation, not simply by adhering to the accredited distinction between an ordinary action for slander and a special action on' the case for slander, but by differentiating, as above intimated, between injury to a person and injury to his property or employment not affecting his personal reputation. A dis tinction truly exists between injuries in personam and in rem arising from defamatory statements, and the question may be raised whether Mr. Bower might not, for the pur pose of lucidity, have adopted this termi nology to advantage. Statements that a carpenter is a bungler, and that he is ill and unable to work, may alike injure him materi ally with respect to his employment, but the former imports a distinctly personal wrong as well as disparagement of his calling. As for those common law forms of actions on the case for slander which will not lie without proof of actual damage, we may observe that those usually treated as a part of the law of defamation deal with wrongs which are to be classified as in personam, while such actions as that of a special action on the case for slander, or the old action for "slander of title," deal rather with wrongs in rem. We would suggest that in any revision of this work the subject of negligence be glanced at in article 32 in considering fair comment. When, for example, a person claiming the privilege, or better, the "immunity," of fair comment proves that the facts on which he relied were true to the best of his knowledge and belief, though subsequently shown to be
