American law register Volume 30 - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 Excerpt: ...will be able to send to the subscribers copies of the June, July, August and September numbers within ten days. With the commencement of the new year the Editorial Management, mentioned in the first page of the April number and of this number, will take entire charge of the Magazine. THE AMERICAN LAW REGISTER. JUNE, 1891. THE IMPUTATION OF INSANITY AS A CAUSE OF ACTION FOR DEFAMATION. According to Odgers on Libel and Slander, 53 (Bl. ed. 1887), spoken words are actionable: 1, Where the words charge the plaintiff with the commission of a crime; 2, When they impute to him a contagious or infectious disease, tending to exclude him from society; 3, When they are spoken of him in the way of his office, profession, or trade (or business, as others state the rule, that being a more comprehensive word than trade); 4, When, although not per se actionable, they have caused some special damage to the plaintiff. This classification, however, seems to be faulty, in that it apparently classes words affecting a man in his profession-or business with those per se actionable on account of their defamatory character; whereas the former become actionable only by reason of the person in reference to whom they are spoken, and should therefore be classed with those words which are actionable only by reason of special damage, the fact that a person is in trade, as was said by Williams, J., in Rolin v. Steivart (1854), 14 C. B. 603, standing in the place of special damage. Newell on Defamation, Slander, and L,ibel (1890), extends (page 84) the list of words actionable per se to those which impute moral turpitude, or a want of chastity and the like. Townshend, in the fourth edition of his work on Slander and Uibel (page 157, &c.,) adopts a more intricate classification, but one...