care.

Whether the animal be dangerous or tame, the owner is liable only for negligence. The care required must, of course, be proportioned to the danger to be apprehended. In order to charge an owner or keeper for injuries by animals, it is necessary to show that he had knowledge of the dangerous propensity and failed to take proper precautions.

§ 229. Owner's knowledge of danger.-Distinction is made, so far as the evidence of negligence in the owner is concerned, between (1) animals naturally vicious and (2) tame animals that have become vicious.

As to naturally wild and vicious animals, the presumption is conclusive that the owner knew them to be dangerous.

As to animals that have broken through the tameness of their nature and become vicious, there is no presumption that the owner knew of the dangerous propensity, but proof of a single breach brought home to the owner's notice is sufficient. Thence forward they are to be treated the same as naturally wild animals.

As to tame domestic animals, the owner is bound only for a negligent failure to keep them confined, and then only for such injuries as from their nature they are likely to commit.

§ 230. Introductory.-Not only does the law seek to protect men in their persons, property and reputations, but also in their domestic and business relations. From early times domestic relations have been zealously protected and in recent years great emphasis has been put upon the proper protection of business relations. In the complex conditions of modern life where all individuals are mutually dependent upon business relations the importance of protecting them and of keeping open the opportunities for their easy and effective formation is obvious. "A free market for goods and labor is the economic ideal of this branch of the law, and any interference with this must show a justification." An interference which is not justified is illegal and the offending party is liable in damages to the party injured.

§ 231. Enticing of servant and seduction of servant

or daughter. It was formerly held that where a servant was enticed away from the employment of his master leaving work unfinished that the master was entitled to recover damages from the offender. The theory of this rule was that the master had a right to the services of his employe at least through the completion of any task upon which the servant was engaged. On much the same theory an action has lain from early times for the seduction and debauching of a daughter or female servant. The foundation of this action was to recover damages for the loss of services rendered by the servant or daughter. In modern times courts have allowed very slight proof of service to be sufficient where a parent is suing for the seduction of his daughter. In some cases the proof of loss of service has been little better than a fiction and the parent has been allowed to recover for injury to his feelings which, in most cases, is the chief element of damage.

§ 232. Interference with marital duties.-Where a woman is induced to live apart from her husband through improper motives of the defendant the husband is entitled to recover in an action for damages, and likewise, a wife may recover damages from a defendant who by improper persuasion deprives her of her husband's society. A common example of the exercise of this right is a suit brought by one woman against another for the alienation of her husband's affections.

§ 233. Interference with contractual duties. It is the policy of the law to protect contractual obligations from the malicious interference of a third party. Thus, where A is under contract to work for B, and X induces A to break the contract, B can recover from X in an action for damages, if the motive of X was to injure the plaintiff or to benefit himself at the cost of the plain

tiff. Thus where an opera singer was under contract to sing for three months at the plaintiff's theatre and the manager of a rival theatre induced her to break that contract and sing at his own theatre, he was held liable to respond to the plaintiff in damages.

§ 234. Interference with business relations by force or threats of force. It is unlawful to use force or threats of force to prevent one person from being employed by another, from working for him, or from doing business with him. If one schoolmaster by setting up a new school next to his competitor takes away the patronage of the rival school, he is not guilty of a legal wrong, for it is the policy of the law to favor rather than to stifle competition. Should the new schoolmaster, however, frighten the scholars by force from attending the rival school, he would then be liable for damages. A common illustration of the application of this principle is found in modern labor disputes where strikers place pickets to prevent persons from patronizing or working for their former employers. Where they attempt to achieve this end through force or through threats of force, their actions are illegal and the plaintiff may recover damages.

§ 235. Intentional injury to business relations constitutes a prima facie tort.-When intentional injury was done to business relations through peaceful and persuasive methods the earlier cases were in hopeless conflict as to whether or not the injured party could recover and what conditions were essential to recovery. The fundamental principles involved never received any very definite formulation. The same is true today and the law on this subject is very unsettled, but the fundamental problem has been restated so as to bring out

The

in clear relief the important issues involved. fundamental principle as restated is that an intentional injury to the business of the plaintiff, though done through persuasive methods, is a prima facie tort and that the burden is upon the defendant to justify his action. For example, if the members of a labor union refuse to work for their employer unless he will establish a closed shop, and as a result the employer discharges all the nonunion men in his employ, do the men so discharged have an action for damages against the labor union? This is clearly a prima facie tort and the question arising is as to the justification. What constitutes a justification is a matter which is not yet settled and upon which the authorities are in conflict.

§ 236. Justification for prima facie torts.-The policy of the law in dealing with business relations is generally favorable to competition and consequently there is a tendency to hold that fair and lawful competition is a justification for the resulting injuries to a competitor. If the defendant goes into the grocery business across the street from the plaintiff's store and runs the business so efficiently as to deprive the plaintiff of his customers by giving them cheaper and better service, there can be no doubt but that the courts everywhere would hold the public benefits of such competition to afford adequate justification for the prima facie tort. The difficult questions arise where the forms of competition are more strenuous and the public benefits less certain. Where a defendant, for example, threatens to discharge any of his employes found trading at the competing store of the plaintiff, thereby depriving him of their business, there is a prima facie tort for which the justification is not so clear. It is true that the defendant is engaged in competition but the public benefits of this particular