The damage must of course have accrued to the plaintiff, and not to some one else. A loss which has resulted to A. in consequence of the defendant's having defamed B., is too remote to constitute special damage in any action brought by B. Whether A., who has himself suffered the damage, can sue, depends upon the closeness of the relationship between A. and B. If A. is B.'s master, A. may perhaps have an action on the case per quod servitium amisit. If A. is B.'s husband, then it is clear law that the husband may sue for any special damage which has accrued to him through the defamation of his wife (post, p. 395). But a wife cannot recover for any special damage which words spoken of her have inflicted on her husband. (Harwood et ux. v. Hardwick et ux. (1668), 2 Keble, 387.) This rule presses very harshly upon married women; for before the Married Women's Property Act there was hardly any special damage which they could suffer. Their earnings were their husbands'; so was their time. Lord Wensleydale, in Lynch v. Knight and wife, 9 H. L. C. 597, even doubted if loss of consortium of her husband was such special damage as would sustain an action of slander by a wife. Loss of the society of her friends and neighbours clearly is not. The only special damage, in fact, which a married woman living with her husband could set up was loss of hospitality. And, even in conceding her this, the judges seemed to be straining the law, for her husband was bound to maintain her: so that such gratuitous entertainment was really a saving to the husband's pocket. But in Davies v. Solomon, L. R. 7 Q. B. 112; 41 L. J. Q. B. 10; 20 W. R. 167; 25 L. T. 799, the judges declined to scrutinize too nicely into such matters; and no doubt the loss is really the wife's. Her friends would supply her with better and other food than that which the law compels her husband to afford her. The operation of the Married Women's Property Acts may lessen the hardship. In some cases the difficulty might perhaps have been obviated had the husband sued alone. (See Coleman et ux. v. Harcourt, 1 Lev. 140; post, p. 399.) Illustrations. A brother cannot sue for slander of his sister. Subbaiyar v. Kristnaiyar and another, I. L. R., 1 Madras, 383. Nor a son for slander of his deceased father. Luckumsey Rowji v. Hurbun Nursey and others, I. L. R., 5 Bom. 580. If one partner be libelled, he cannot recover for any special damage which has occurred to the firm. Solomons and others v. Medex, 1 Stark. 191. Robinson v. Marchant, 7 Q. B. 918; 15 L. J. Q. B. 134; 10 Jur. 156. Similarly, if the firm be libelled as a body, they cannot jointly recover for any private injury to a single partner; though that partner may now recover his individual damages in the same action. Haythorn v. Lawson, 3 C. & P. 196. Le Fanu v. Malcolmson, 1 H. L. C. 637; 8 Ir. L. R. 418; 13 L. T. (O. S.) 61. Where words actionable per se were spoken of a married woman, she was allowed to recover only 20s. damages; all the special damage which she proved at the trial was held to have accrued to her husband, and not to her: he ought, therefore, to have sued for it in a separate action. Dengate and wife v. Gardiner, 4 M. & W. 5; 2 Jur. 470. Saville et ux. v. Sweeny, 4 B. & Ad. 514; 1 N. & M. 254. A declaration by husband and wife alleged that the defendant falsely and maliciously spoke certain words of the wife imputing incontinence to her, whereby she lost the society of her neighbours, and became ill and unable to attend to her necessary affairs and business, and her husband incurred expense in curing her, and lost the society and assistance of his wife in his domestic affairs. Held that the declaration disclosed no cause of action. Allsop and wife v. Allsop, 5 H. & N. 534; 29 L. J. Ex. 315; 6 Jur. Approved in Lynch v. Knight and wife, 9 H. L. C. 577. Where words were spoken imputing unchastity to a woman, and by reason thereof she was excluded from a private society and congregation of a sect of Calvinistic Methodists, of which she had been a member, and was prevented from obtaining a certificate, without which she could not become a member of any other society of the same nature; held that such a result was not such special damage as would render the words actionable. Roberts and wife v. Roberts, 5 B. & S. 384; 33 L. J. Q. B. 249; 12 W. [N.B. The excommunication case, Barnabas v. Traunter, 1 Vin. Abr. 396; ante, p. 301, was not cited to the court in this case.] CHAPTER XI. INJUNCTIONS. INJUNCTIONS granted in actions of defamation are of three kinds : I. Injunctions granted to restrain or prevent such libels as are, or if published will be, contempts of Court. II. Injunctions granted after verdict, or at the final hearing. III. Injunctions granted on an interlocutory application before or without any verdict. I. Injunctions to restrain or prevent Contempt of Court. A libel is a contempt of Court, which (a) Scandalises the Court itself; (b) Abuses the parties to any action before the Court; (c) Prejudices mankind against either party before the case is heard. Such libels the Court has a clear and undoubted jurisdiction to restrain. "Nothing is more incumbent upon courts of justice, than to preserve their proceedings from being misrepresented; nor is there anything of more pernicious consequence, than to prejudice the minds of the public against persons concerned as parties in causes, before the cause is finally heard." (Per Lord Hardwicke, L. C., in Roach v. Garvan, Re Read and Huggonson, 2 Atk. 469; 2 Dick. 794.) The Court, therefore, will grant an injunction to restrain the publication of any libels, the evident result of which would be to affect the administration of justice, whether the writer intended that result or no. (Per Lord Romilly, M. R., in Daw v. Eley, L. R. 7 Eq. 49; 38 L. J. Ch. 113.) Such an injunction must be applied for promptly; and it will not be granted if the applicant has himself entered into a controversy on the matter in the public press. (Ibid.) Illustrations. While the evidence in a Chancery suit was being taken before the examiner, the plaintiff caused the following advertisement to be inserted in the Times :"To the share and debenture holders of the West Hartlepool Harbour and Railway Company:-I have just published a reply to the proceedings of a meeting of proprietors, held at West Hartlepool on the 28th June last, which may be had of King, Parliament Street, and all booksellers. B. Coleman, Street, London." The pamphlet was full of abuse of the chairman of the defendant company, and also gave a digest of plaintiff's evidence before the examiner, &c. Vice-Chancellor Wood granted an injunction to restrain the plaintiff, his solicitors, servants, agents, and workmen from publishing so much of the pamphlet (stating the objectionable passages), and from publishing or offering for sale, during the progress of this suit, any book or pamphlet containing statements of the proceedings in this suit; and also from making public any of such proceedings otherwise than in the due course of the prosecution of this suit until the hearing of this cause, or until the further order of this Court. Coleman v. West Hartlepool Harbour and Rail. Co., 8 W. R. 734; 2 L. T. 766. One of the defendants in an action, who was a Nonconformist minister, circulated a handbill through the town in the following words : "On Sunday morning, June 25th, the Rev. Thomas Blandford will preach a sermon with special reference to the trial in which the town is so deeply inrested, and which is fixed for the 27th and following days. "Divine service to commence at 11 o'clock." About forty inhabitants of Herne Bay were to be examined as witnesses at the trial. Bacon, V.-C., on Saturday, the 24th, granted an injunction to restrain Blandford from preaching any sermon or delivering any address with special or other reference to the trial, and from issuing these handbills, or being in any way instrumental in the publication or distribution of these or any other like handbills or notices, and from otherwise prejudicing or interfering with the trial of the action or the persons to be examined as witnesses therein. Mackett v. Commissioners of Herne Bay, 24 W. R. 845. The defendant, on receiving a statement of claim charging him with fraud, wrote an angry letter to the plaintiff, a clergyman, threatening to have a few thousand copies printed, with defendant's own remarks thereon, and copies of the defendant's letters, and distributed amongst all the clergy, "addressed from the Clergy List." Fry, J., granted an injunction to restrain the threatened publication, as being both a libel on the plaintiff as plaintiff, and also as tending to prejudice the fair trial of the action. Kitcat v. Sharp, 52 L. J. Ch. 134; 31 W. R. 227; 48 L. T. 64. The plaintiffs and the defendant were ship brokers; the plaintiffs delivered a statement of claim charging the defendant with unfair and improper conduct in his business, and before any defence was delivered circulated copies among the business connections of both parties. Malins, V.-C., held that the plaintiffs had committed a contempt of Court, and must pay the costs of a motion to commit them; he also granted an injunction to restrain the plaintiffs from publishing or circulating copies of the statement of claim in the action. Bowden and another v. Russell, 46 L. J. Ch. 414; 36 L. T. 177. Closely akin to the power of restraining contempts of Court, is the power which all superior Courts undoubtedly possess of forbidding for a time reports of or comments on their own proceedings, whenever the presiding judge considers that such publication will prejudice future proceedings. Illustrations. On the trial of Thistlewood and others for treason, in 1820, Abbott, C. J., announced in open Court that he prohibited the publication of any of the proceedings until the trial of all the prisoners should be concluded. In spite of this prohibition, the Observer published a report of the trial of the first two prisoners tried. The proprietor of the Observer was summoned for the contempt, and, failing to appear, was fined 5007. R. v. Clement, 4 B. & Ald. 218. Where one of two prisoners charged with murder confessed before his trial, and by his confession seriously implicated the other, the Court of Session prohibited the Edinburgh Evening Courant from publishing the confession, lest it should prejudice the fair trial of the other prisoner. Bell's Notes, 165. See also Emond's Case (Dec. 7th, 1829), Shaw, 229. Fleming and others v. Newton, 1 H. L. C. 363; 6 Bell's App. 175. Where several prisoners were to be tried at one sessions for similar acts of sedition, and on the trial of the first one the jury disagreed, and the Dublin Evening Post severely attacked the jury for not convicting him, the Dublin Assize Court made an order prohibiting all comments in any newspaper upon the proceedings of the session till all the prisoners had been tried, considering |