''Bray v Ford''

896 __NOTOC__ Year 896 ( DCCCXCVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * February – King Arnulf of Carinthia invades Italy at the head of an East F ...

AC 44 is an

English defamation law Modern libel and slander laws in many countries are originally descended from English defamation law. The history of defamation law in England is somewhat obscure; civil actions for damages seem to have been relatively frequent as far back as th ...

case, which also concerns some principles of conflict of interest relevant for

trusts A trust is a legal relationship in which the holder of a right gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for another's benefit. In the Anglo-American common law, the party who entrusts the right is known as the "settl ...

and company law.

Facts

Mr Bray was a governor of

Yorkshire College , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , t ...

. Mr Ford was the vice-chairman of the governors and had also been working as a solicitor for the college. Bray sent him a letter, and circulated it to others, saying,

“Sir, during last summer, as you are aware, it came to my knowledge that whilst holding the fiduciary position of vice-chairman of the Yorkshire College you were illegally and improperly, as you know, making profit as its paid solicitor.”

This was held to be libellous by the jury at trial. But Cave J had directed the jury that the College’s articles did in fact allow for pay of services as a solicitor. The jury awarded £600 damages, and the question was whether the award could stand in the face of the misdirection. The Court of Appeal (

Lord Esher MR William Baliol Brett, 1st Viscount Esher, PC (13 August 181524 May 1899), known as Sir William Brett between 1868 and 1883, was a British lawyer, judge, and Conservative politician. He was briefly Solicitor-General under Benjamin Disraeli and ...

, Lopes LJ and Rigby LJ) held this was a misdirection, but that it was libel anyway, the misdirection was unsubstantial and the jury would have decided the same.

Judgment

The House of Lords, composed of Lord Halsbury LC, Lord Watson, Lord Herschell, Lord Shand unanimously reversed the Court of Appeal’s decision, on the basis that the decision of whether a libel existed was peculiarly within the jury’s power to decide, and the misdirection did constitute a ‘substantial wrong or miscarriage’ requiring a new trial. Lord Herschell's opinion went as follows..

Notes

{{reflist, 2 United Kingdom company case law English defamation case law House of Lords cases 1896 in British law 1896 in case law

Facts

Judgment

See also

Notes