Issa Bia V. A. H. Murray (1954)

LawGlobal Hub Judgment Report – West Africa Court of Appeal

Tort—Libel—Circumstances of publication—Privilege—Malice

The plaintiff (appellant), who was a stores orderly in the service of a company,
was prosecuted for theft of canvas and acquitted. When he came for work he refused to say who had stolen the canvas, whereupon the defendant said he would have him dismissed.

Later defendant wrote on a report, “Involved in a theft of three yards canvas and, although found not guilty, I maintain this canvas was stolen from our main stores ”, and gave it to the plaintiff to take to the Labour Office and the Registration Office, in accordance with practice, from where it would be passed to the general manager to decide.

The plaintiff, an illiterate, showed it to someone, who read it to him; he kept the form, absented himself and sued the defendant for libel. The trial Judge thought the defendant’s language showed express malice and destroyed the privilege of the occasion; he also thought that the defendant was responsible for plaintiff’s showing the report to a third party by giving it open to the plaintiff (but there was no evidence of any practice to enclose it in an envelope). The Judge gave the plaintiff damages. The defendant appealed.

Held

(1) The occasion being privileged, plaintiff had to show actual malice in the defendant, but of this there was no evidence in the language used by the
defendant.

(2) The defendant was not responsible for the publication brought about by plaintiff diverting the report from its routine course.

Appeal allowed; judgment for appellant-defendant.