Edna Johnson v Joyce Smith (CC 159 of 1961) [1963] SLSC 25 (26 June 1963)

Freetown June 26, 1963 Marke J. [slJPREME COURT] EDNA JOHNSON Plaintiff V. JOYCE SMITH Defendant [C.C. 159/61] Tort-Slander-Imputation of adultery-Special damt!g(:-Uooulhorised repetition of slander-Remoteness of damage-Defamation Act, 1961 (No. 32 of 1961), s. 3. On April 21, 1961, defendant said to plaintiff in krio in the hearing of several other people: " You are the paramour of Syrians and you spend all night in their arms. Even your children to whom you have given birth are mixtures. I can prove it." Plaintiff's husband was not present when these words were spoken, but when he returned home, plaintiff told him what had happened, and, after making inquiries, he put her out of his house for several days. Plaintiff broUJght suit against defendant for slander, alleging that the defendant had meant, and the words were understood by those who heard her to mean, that the plaintiff was an unchaste and immoral woman, that she had been unfaithful to her husband and that the children of her marriage were illegitimate. She further alleged that " By reason of the premises the plaintiff was put to considerable humiliation and shame and her husband put her out of his house for three days." The statement of defence denied all plaintiff's allegations and also stated in paragraph 5 : " • • . the defendant says she was not the cause of any humiliation or shame suffered by the plaintiff, nor responsible for the actions of the plaintiff's husband." Section 3 of the Defamation Act, 1961, which came into force on May 11, 1961, provides: "Words spoken and published after the passing of this Ordinance which impute unchastity or adultery to any woman or girl shall not require special damage to render them actionable .... " Held, for the defendant, (1) since the defamatory words imputing adultery to the plaintiff were spoken before the coming into force of the Defamation Act, 1961, it was necessary for the plaintiff to prove special damage in order to render the words actionable. (2) Where special damage arises from the repetition of a slander, an action may be maintained against the person uttering the slander only if he authorised or intended the repetition, or if the repetition was the natural consequence of his act, or if there was a moral obligation on the person in whose presence the slander was uttered to repeat it. Cases referred to: Ward v. Weeks (1830) 7 Bing. 211; 9 L.J.C.P. 6; Parkins v. Scott (1862) 1 H. & C. 153; 158 E.R. 839; Speight v. Gosnay (1891) 60 L.J.Q.B. 231; Weld-Blundell v. Stephens [1920] A.C. 956. Cyrus Rogers-Wright for the plaintiff. Rowland E. A. Harding for the defendant. R. B. MARKE J. The plaintiff in this action, a married woman, alleged by paragraph 2 of her statement of claim as follows : 34 " 2 On Friday, April 21, 1961, the defendant falsely and maliciously S. C. " e .and published of the plaintiff to Madam Conteh an~ ~a~am Hutu.•na 1963 ,pok 'h"'f [sic] whose names are unknown to the plamnff the words nd to O• V • J ~ , . that is to say: ' You nar Synan man wef: all net you da to OHNSON •<;nlowmg, . . b h . Ah k' v. ~ . ,..,., 0 You pikm tnem way you om t .em nar ma:ture. tm SMI~. ~vnan "'"" · . . •n ;-,_ . m • which in English means: 'You are the paramour of Synans prod.ve_ ~ ~pend all night in their arms. Even your children to whom you Marke J. an yo . I 't', . ·v·en birth are miXtures. can prove 1 . nave gi . n"o is stated in paragraph 3 of the statement of clai..'U, in which the -r'ne 1nue " ;l:intiff alleged that the defendant meant, _an? the words were under~tood by v· · _ ·ho 'ne"rd her to mean, that the plamtiff was an unchaste and 1mmoral th~'e w "' ·.'-':"'n and "had been, was and is unfaithful to her husband" and that the ~o;,::;n of her marriage were illegitimate and had been foisted on her ~~~~~nd. moreover, that she was in a position to prove this. rnJ;, ...... a- ;I • • • In paragraph 5 of the statement of cla!ill the plamtlff alleged as follows: "5. By reason of the premises the plaintiff was put to considerable humiliation and shame and her husband put her out of his house for three The statement of defence is a complete denial of the allegations in plaintiff's statement of claim. In paragraph 5 of the statement of defence the defendant pleaded as follows : "5. In answer to paragraph 5 of the statement of claim, the defendant says she was not the cause of any humiliation or shame suffered by the plaintiff, nor responsible for the actions of the plaintiff's husband." On these pleadings issue was joined. The plaintiff, in her evidence, substantially supported the allegation in the statement of claim. She said that the words were uttered within earshot of certain persons she named, but that her husband was not present. That when returned home she told him what had happened, and after he had made '"'"""'"··~ from the people whom she said were within earshot when defendant . 9sed .the words complained of, he drove her out of the matrimonial home for tru~.~ days. The husband of the plaintiff then gave evidence. He said that on his ret',frn from work on April 21, 1961, his wife told him something and after maldng h'lquiries from certain named persons he asked his wife to leave his house. ' Nancy John, otherwise known as Mammy Ninni, next gave evidence l:;yr:;:oborating in the main the evidence of the plaintiff. This closed the plaintiff's case. The defendant, in her evidence, denied having used the words complained Qf, Although she had not pleaded it in her statement of defence she alleged it was the plaintiff who had used words that day imputing her chastity, .but I Was not favourably impressed with her evidence. She gave the impression she was keeping back something. She assumed an air of prudishness in an <lttempt perhaps to impress me that she lived in an environment where she had never heard such words uttered. She pretended not to know what the local ~r~~:~ion ~·-~~ray ?irl ",meant, and pretende~ also not to kn~w what the ~ g,I-.,. wo,d prostitute ' meant. I do not believe she was speakmg the truth and Would not accept her uncorroborated evidence when it conflicted with the 35 s. c. 1963 JOHNSON v. SMITH. Marke I. plaintiff's evidence. After observing her demeanour in the witness-box and her evasive answers I have come to the conclusion that she did utter the words compiained of with the meanings assigned to them. Having held as a fact that words imputing unchastity to the plaintiff were spoken and published by the defendant on April 20, 1961, it now remains for me to examine whether these words are actionable as they were spoken and published before May 11, 1961, when our Defamation Ordinance came into force. The material part of section 3 of that Ordinance provides as follows: "Words spoken and published after the passing of this Ordinance which impute unchastity or adultery to any woman or gid shaH not require special damage to render them actionable." So that for the plaintiff to succeed in this particular case where the words were spoken or published before the passing of the Ordinance she must prove special damage. The special damage here claimed is the loss by the plaintiff of her husband's consortium. As neither counsel thought it fit to refer me to decided authorities in cases where ioss of a spouse's consortium has been pleaded as special damage to enable defamatory words to be actionable, I propose to examine the authorities on this point. It is admitted by both parties that plaintiff's husband was not present when the words were uttered. That it was the plaintiff who reported the words to the husband as a result of which he asked her to leave the matrimonial home. In Ward v. Weeks (1830) 7 Bing. 211; 9 L.J.C.P. 6 it was decided that where the words are not actionable per se the original utterer of the slander is not liable unless the person who was influenced by them-in this case the plaintiff's husband-was present and heard them spoken or the utterer authorised their repetition. In this case of Ward v. Weeks the special damage proved was loss of the husband's consortium. A similar point came up for consideration in Parkins v. Scott (1862) 1 H. & C. 153; 158 E.R. 839. In this case a wife accused of unchastiy-as in the case now before us-reported this slander to her husband, who, in consequence, left her. Pollock C.B. in this case said: " I cannot help expressing regret that we should have to discuss such a matter where the words can scarcely be called slander but are rather mere vulgar abuse, the result of ill temper and bad manners." Pollock C.B. approved Ward v. Weeks. Lopes L.J. in Speight v. Gosnay (1891) 60 L.J.Q.B. 231 (C.A.) laid down that the original utterer of a slander was liable for damages done by its repetition in four types of cases: (1) if he authorised the repetition; (2) if he intended the repetition; (3) if the repetition was the natural consequence; (4) if there was a moral duty on the person to whom it was uttered to repeat it. Authorised and intended repetition create no difficulty in the case before me. All the defendant said was that she could prove her imputation of unchastity: there was no evidence that she told plaintiff to tell her husband or anyone else, nor can it be deduced from the evidence that she intended the plaintiff to repeat it. As regards the third and fourth categories the case Speight v. Gosnay (supra) gives a complete answer. In that case the defendant said of an unmarried woman to her mother that she was unchaste. The mother repeated this to 36 aughter, who repeated it to her fiance, who thereupon broke off the her d nt The Court of Appeal held that the damage was remote. gageme · en Tl , House of Lords in W eld-Blundell v. Stephens [1920] A. C. 956 approved d~~t in Ward v. Weeks, and said that Ward v. Weeks, though decided over •he !C a . d ... d ~d years ago, was still goo law. ~ hun r .. " - A lying the dicta of these cases to the case now before me I must hold that ,_ ~pas no moral duty on the part of the plaintiff to repeat the words uttered :ue~e,: husband, nor was it a natural consequence of the defendant's having ' 0 • ·:d them for the plaintiff to repeat them. And as a result I must further uttle~"•ha-t the special damage alleged in this case is too remote to render the ho~a h.i ~;ords actionable. · In the result this action is dismissed out of this court with costs to be taxed and paid by the plaintiff to the defendant. [SUPREME COURT] REGINA v. ARTIIUR B. 0. WILLIAMS [Information No. 12 of 1963] Criminal Law-Forgery-Intent to defraud-Knowledge. of JahiJY-Circumstanti€il evidence-Evidence as to handwriting--ldent.i~ of person whose lu:mdwriiin.g is forged-Uttering-Forgery Act, 1913 (3 & 4 Geo. 5, c. 27) (Vol. l, Laws of Sierra Leone, 1960, p. 200), ss. 1, 2, 6. Defendant was ctarged with forgery and uttering a forged document contrary to sections 2 (1) and 6 of the Forgery Act, 1913. It was alleged that defendant, on or about March 30, 1957, "with intent to defraud, forged a certain will purporting to be the will of the late E. E. Williams (hi.s. father)" and that,. on or about April 27, 1960, he "uttered a certain forged will purporting to be the will of the late E. E. Williams." The evidence for the prosecution was as follows: Charles B. Davies, a friend of the family, testified that, sometime after testator's death on April 27, 1960, he was invited by defendant to go to a house at 32, Kissy Street, Freetown, to hear the reading of the will of E. E. Williams (the testator). He said that the will he read on that occasion was not the same as the will which was later admitted to probate (Exh. " A ") but he went on to say, " I cannot say I am familiar with the late Mr. Williams' signature." Reuben K. 0. Williams, defendant's younger brother, also testified that the will which was read at 32, Kissy Street was not the same as Exhibit "A." He said that the signature on Exhibit " A" was not that of the testator, although it was similar. At the close of the prosecution's case, counsel for the defendant submitted that there was no case for the defendant to answer. Held, directing a verdict of not guilty, that the evidence that Exhibit" A" was forged was insufficient to go to the jury. Kanja A. Daramy and lames E. Mackay for the Queen. Edwrml I. McCormack for the defendant. 37 s. c. 1963 JOHNSON v. SMITH. Marke 1. Freetown July 2, 1963 Luke Ag.I.